On Christmas day, when a lot of you were opening presents and sharing joy and thanks, Estelle, Héloïse and Frédéric Colas decided that they would offer a gift: 'We Like The World' is the name of the trip around the world that the Colas' family will do from July 2011 to June 2012, with one mission: to fund the building of a girls' school in Cambodia, thanks to the help of their 80.000 facebook friends and friends of friends living around the world.

Fred is 42 and has already travelled to more than 50 countries. He co-founded FullSIX, one of the leading digital marketing agency in Europe where he is Chief Strategic Officer, specifically in charge of social media; he also teaches 'social marketing' in a famous French business school.

Estelle, 43, works at the advertising agency BETC Euro RSCG Paris. She previously worked for the communication company Havas Group in France, but also in the US and in Belgium.

Héloïse is their 8 year old daughter who goes to the Ecole Active Bilingue in Paris and visited already 4 continents.

A very happy familly. However they thought they were missing something: a goal, an achievement. They decided to help others and support the education of girls in developping countries by funding a school for girls in Cambodia (in partnership with The Child's Voice, a renewed charity to make sure that the gathered funding are used with professionalism for a useful, pereneous and locally supported project).

In order to do that, they need €75,000, that they plan to get during a 1 year travel around the world. For 1 year, their trip around the world will be the occasion to share their passion and test the social networks and the friendship you get on the Internet:  using their hundred and soon thousand friends, and friends of friends, of what they call their 'social graph'.

They have a Facebook page to support their project. For each fan of their page, they will donate $1 (up to $30,000). In addition, during their trip, they will give $50 for each night where they are hosted by friends of their social network.

But it's time for them to explain with their own words, as they have kindly answered our questions:

1- Can you describe your project?
We are going around the world and try to meet, everywhere we go, facebook friends or friends of friends. If we get hosted by families, we will used the saved money to fund a girls’ school in Cambodia.

2- When and why did you have the idea?
We decided to go during our summer vacations of 2010, in Costa Rica.

3- What are the challenges/difficulties you are meeting?
Our challenges and difficulties are to find enough time to build our project as we are working hard in our jobs. This is why we are thinking of finding people that would like to help us on making the project happen.

4- As you won't be alone but with a family including a 8 year old kid, do you need specific preparation? (what about school?)
We will have to make the class for Héloïse. But, at her age and with her character (she likes school), we are not worried about it.

5- Are you going to plan everything in advance or see how things are going along the way?
We are not going to plan everything in advance. Some big choices will be made but we will keep our freedom if we want to stay more to one place because we like it.

6- How do you finance the project?
The school project will be partly financed by us through the “80000 friends” and “hosting” challenges. This will probably cover 50% of the need. The rest will have to come from our friends donations and sponsors.

7- Do you plan do report about it along the way? During the adventure?
Yes, we plan to report and create content during our trip. But, we will focus on the people we meet rather than what we do or what we see.

8- What can we do to help?
Help can be diverse: immediately, become a friend on the facebook page and  encourage your friends to do the same or become a corporate sponsor. Later in the project, put us in touch with friends in the places we will visit so that we can be hosted, donate for the school project.

Now it is your turn: go on their page and click on Like!

You can also see the english slideshare presentation here.

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