We caught up with Vanessa Raphaely, founder of the The Village which she launched on Facebook, in March 2017. Vanessa’s working career reads like a Hollywood script; a media consultant, journalist and author. (Plus One, published by Pan MacMillan SA and The Princess Pincushion children’s book series, published by Art Publishers.). She was formerly the Content Director of Associated Media (Cosmopolitan, House and Leisure, Marie Claire, Good Housekeeping among others.).
Having left the corporate world she thought that “things would just come her way” and the next part of her career would just find her. Alas, it never did. The phone never rang and no one was pounding down her door to work with her.
Vanessa had to do something (or so she thought), after a failed business idea that never even made it out the gate, she realised that her place and way forward was with a collective group of parents on a safe social media group she had started by the by.
Spring forward to today and we find The Village is a supportive, non-judgmental, open-minded community, offering resources, wisdom, shared experience and advice to parents of tweens, teens and young adults.
The content of The Village, both on Facebook and on thr website, is User Generated. It is not produced by experts or journalists. It is a digest of the referrals, recommendations, opinions and shared experience of the community. ANY advice that resonates on any Village platform, should be discussed with a relevant, reputable and qualified professional, before being followed.
Based on respect, kindness and the willingness to hear and share your experience in a safe space and place. Because of the basic rules of the group a space for parents to be their authentic self is available to all.
“Our engagement on the group never drop below 93% and racked up over 250 000 interactions in the last 7 days of lock down. Our audience is so highly engaged and its for all parents and is certainly not gender specific.
Within this incredibly interactive and connected group we have so many experts in every possible avenue and these experts are coming forward and sharing with the audience and being there for the community – it’s the Power of the Tribe; there are many people applying their minds to a problem and coming up with a combined solution to every day problems and emotional issues that parents and kids face on a daily basis” says Raphaely.
Never dismiss the power of a community – mothers and parents are a massive community and having a team collectively makes its that much easier. We have never seen this in previous decades. Everyone contributes and either publicly or privately people share their learned experiences on The Village
We are all in this together and how we deal with it now is how we will rewrite the way in which we do things in the future. For those who have not heard of or joined The Village please go to Facebook or go directly to the website – www.thevillagehq.com or email
