“Kite Runner” author Khaled Hosseini supports launch of Amir’s website.

“This is a great idea” said Khaled Hosseini, referring to the website http://www.babasorphanage.com created by Kyle Swany that aims to sell advertising space on it’s homepage in order to raise $250,000 for charity before the Kite Runner movie debut on November 2nd 2007.

Kyle Swany played the role of Amir, the protagonist of Kite Runner, in the official world premiere of the Kite Runner stage play at San Jose State University. Having the privilege to perform the role compelled Swany to create a website that would “blend the boundaries between fiction and reality and leverage the strength of Khaled Hosseini’s novel to bring a positive change to the world - a change fueled by the power of the internet.”

The charity Swany aims to support, Smile Train, is known for providing cleft lip surgeries to children. “In the Kite Runner novel, Amir’s best friend, Hassan, is born with a cleft lip, and later on in the story he receives a surgery to correct it. Since Smile Train corrects cleft lips in real life, it seemed only natural for Smile Train to be the charity for BabasOrphanage.com to support.” says Swany.

The domain name “BabasOrphanage.com” was chosen because “Amir’s father, Baba, builds an orphanage in the novel, and since both the website and orphanages in general are geared towards saving children, the title felt like a perfect match.” Swany said. “And if you’re wondering how correcting a child’s harelip is the same as ‘saving’ them,” he added, “then check out this excerpt form the Smile Train website:”

"Being born with a cleft in a developing country is truly a curse. In fact, every baby born in Uganda with a cleft is given the name Ajok which means literally, "cursed by God." And no one knows how many newborns with clefts are killed or abandoned right after birth. And the ones who are lucky enough to find a Smile Train free cleft surgery program, not only survive, they thrive. After a 45 minute surgery hands them back their future, and a second chance at life that they never thought they'd get.”

In order to raise money, the space on the BabasOrphanage.com homepage is divided into 10,000 squares measuring 10x10 pixels each. Anyone with a PayPal account can purchase these squares, or “rooms in the orphanage”, for $25 each and place a custom image in the space they purchased. That image will then link to whatever website the purchaser decides, whether it be a blog, business, or even that person’s MySpace account. When all 10,000 rooms have been sold, the site will have raised 10,000 x 25 = $250,000 dollars, and with each cleft lip surgery at Smile Train costing $250, BabasOrphanage.com will have saved the lives of 1,000 children.

Swany decided to race his fundraising campaign against the Kite Runner’s November 2nd 2007 release date to both have clearly defined boundaries between success and failure, and to inspire him and those who would help him to spread the word.