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As the first year anniversary of King’s News is swiftly approaching now is the perfect time to take a step back and look at how one man, Colin Makhijani,  turned his idea to encourage young writers into a truly inspiring online children’s magazine. So sit back and relax as you discover the man behind the magazine and how King’s News really came to be!

Imagination is a great facet of human behaviour, it allows us to envision all our fantasies and hopeful plans, yet the bridge between imagination and reality is one not many people are willing to cross. After interviewing Colin, I began to form a greater understanding of how this passage is possible and ultimately the story of King’s creation made me fall in love with the magazine even more as in the face of turbulence the drive to design something innovatively creative for young people never died.

Colin began a career in teaching and eventually decided to go into full time tutoring; it is at this time that he set up a company named King’s publishers. Fluent in several languages and able to teach an array of A-level subjects, Colin definitely has a passion for education. He helped many children to pass the 11+ in the hope of giving students better quality education which would surely follow them throughout their career. Being highly dedicated to teaching, Colin also pushed his students to write essays and encouraged them to be more confident in their writing. All children have the great gift of imagination and there is no such thing as a bad writer in his eyes, but simply a less confident writer. At a certain point in his career Colin began to feel that something was missing in schools, a learning tool for young children that was fresh and fun. He idealised the creation of an online magazine that would not be limited to providing children and young adults with a series of notions to learn or memorise but it would become a platform for young people’s voices to be heard. After sharing his idea with a few teachers many were highly interested in the magazine yet they proved to be unwilling to work on the project. Indeed designing an online website for children that is easily accessible was very challenging. The uphill struggle began with the realisation of the complexity of the programming as the difference between an idea and what a computer is capable of doing became apparent. Only after switching companies and hours upon hours of planning, discussing and changing the layout was the website up and running.  The initial stage of the plan had finally been realised yet another challenge remained, one that was perhaps an even more daunting task than the first, which was encouraging young motivated writers to become involved in King’s News.

In order to give young people a voice and enlighten their creativeness, Colin decided the magazine should be written for young people by young people. Still to date Colin believes in young people’s passion to express themselves creatively and has committed to working extensively behind the scenes when it comes to King’s, giving young writers like myself the possibility and freedom to write articles that interest us specifically and allowing us to have a say on the layout of the magazine. By placing such faith in young writers Colin guides us with a few directions so we don’t get lost but he gives us great responsibility and a reason to be proud of our own work. Colin modestly never takes credit for the success of the magazine and believes strongly in team work - which is why this article is dedicated to recognising his efforts, without Colin we would have no King's News. When asked what the best and worst moments working on King’s News were Colin replied that the worst were the tediously long programming process before switching companies. He continued to say that the best moment was by far the feeling that he has given young writers more confidence and getting writers to upload their first articles.

We have some big plans coming up for King’s News’ first birthday in a few weeks so make sure to keep updated with our Facebook website! When asked about future plans Colin mentioned broadening the horizons of the magazine by expanding the amount of subscribers to the magazine, introducing King’s News to schools and earning the respect of not just peers and adults but young people.  And that is how an inspiring website was inspired by an inspiring man. Despite all the odds Colin never gave up, a lesson we can all adopt, and as a result of all the struggles, efforts and work, was able to create this amazing online children’s magazine!

IMAGE 1: The Magazine's Logo (Personal Image)

IMAGE 2: The Man Behind the Magazine, Colin (Personal Image)