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Hello!
This is where I get to tell you a bit about me and how I got to build this website. My name is Rob, and I am a wildlife ecologist by profession. I spent eight years in Southern Africa working with wildlife and environmental protection, which was a fantastic and thrilling career. Being close to rhino, elephant and various antelope in their natural habitat is something that cannot be beaten!
Over this time, I became greatly concerned about the many thousands of indigenous people living outside the fences of the wildlife preserves. With employment possibilities almost non-existent, and heavily overgrazed and eroded land, they were getting almost no benefit from the aesthetic and environmental value of the reserves. I started getting involved in community development programmes, through which we saw some job creation, as well as a way for the community to benefit from tourism revenues and wildlife utilisation programmes. We built schools and community centres, encouraged community craft centres, and made some real progress.
Asia: "Here I come!"
With this experience under my belt, I moved with my young family to central Asia, where I currently work in community development work. Our main focus is small business development, education and family development. This year we have helped people start businesses in housing construction, selling second hand clothes and firewood supply. Through our kindergarten we have reached several hundred families, whom we have helped with holistic primary health, nutrition, alcohol rehab, and family consultation. We conduct regular family seminars, as we feel that a strong family structure is one of the most important steps in the ladder out of the poverty pit.
Ventures in Investment
Having paid off our mortgage and other debt, I looked at ways to spice up our savings and investment, and also to find seed money for the small business development programmes and the kindergarten. On the advice of a friend, I looked at options trading, which seemed pretty exciting. I bought my first option contract, and within 48 hours lost my whole investment! I then started on a process of buying into all sorts of courses, websites, blogs and newsletter advisories, most of which were either entirely too technically complex and academic, or were touting some infallible system. I found that most advisories either overstated their performance, or tried to convince me that shockingly bad performance was perfectly normal and indeed desirable! I realised that I needed to learn from first principles. I also found that almost all the information that I needed was on the net for free anyway, and that I did not really need to be paying vast sums to others to do it for me.
The Light goes on!
One day, the penny dropped, and I started to see a way through. I started paper trading, and did really well, so applied the same methods to my portfolio and did just as well! I started to enjoy myself! At that point, my community development juices started flowing, and I thought that it would be a great idea to share what I had learnt so that others could benefit. And so this website was born!
I have found the development of this site to be a fun hobby, and to be intellectually stimulating, as I had to really refine my knowledge in order to be able to share it. I had no idea how to start, but found an online company that walked me through the whole process with amazing step by step efficiency. And so here it is! And it's not just about me!
Enjoy! Thanks for visiting!
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