A FLINTSHIRE child is spreading joy all over the globe through his social media presence.

AJ Owens, from Penyffordd, has proven to be an inspiration for other children who had faced bullying after putting themselves out there on social media.

Football-mad AJ, 8, has gathered a huge following on his Instagram page which aims to spread positivity and kindness through a shared-love of football.

His page has attracted hundreds of children from countries across the globe including the USA, Hong Kong, Norway, Jamaica, South Africa and New Zealand.

And with more children coming forward and joining each and every day, the practice of spreading kindness and positivity amongst the online community is increasing.

At the beginning of the Covid-19 lockdown AJ began interacting with his new friends and followers on Instagram and at that time he received a rather emotional message from a young follower.

This message explained how that child had felt intimidated and self-conscious about putting themselves out there due to hurtful experiences they had previously had but that in seeing AJ at such a young age putting himself out there they felt confident to do the same.

Since receiving this message and seeing from the posts of his Instagram friends that so many other children were finding lockdown extremely difficult he desperately wanted to do something that could reach out to other children and to inspire them even if just in the smallest of ways.

The Leader:

His aim was to bring children together, to spread encouragement and positivity and most importantly kindness to as many people as possible.

After putting some thought into it, AJ came up with the idea of #TEAMAJ in which 'teams' of followers would be set up to interact with one another on Instagram, with the aim of children meeting new friends and spreading positivity at the core of the idea.

Each team would consist of 11 players in total. AJ, together with the small group of Team Captains decided to come up with team names that would continue the theme of spreading kindness and positivity.

The Leader: A collage of some of the children involved in #TEAMAJ. A collage of some of the children involved in #TEAMAJ.

AJ started off with 11 Team Captains with team names such as TEAM INSPIRE, TEAM UNITY, TEAM LIMITLESS and TEAM EQUAL to name but a few. The children have also come up with #UNITEANDBEKIND which they are using as their main tagline.

And recently, some of the children involved in #TEAMAJ met in person at Goals in Wembley, London and Birmingham.

A total 12 children managed to make the trips and it was such an emotional day for them to meet, and the child who originally inspired AJ's project was there as well.

And even the children's parents have come together to form friendships.

AJ has now also teamed up with The Diana Award, the only charity set up in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales to his and his followers' goal of raising awareness of not only the issue of bullying but also children’s mental health.

AJ's mum Emma said: " Obviously, at this particular point in time the scope of what the children can accomplish is limited.

"However, AJ and many of the children on board wish to use this opportunity to not only spread kindness and positivity amongst themselves but they also have a huge and varied amount of topics and charities that they wish to highlight and support.

"They are extremely determined to discuss the subject of bullying together with a whole host of charities that support various medical conditions as well as trying to effect real change across areas such as sport in schools, mental health, racism, equality in sport and children looking after disabled parents to mention but a few.

" It truly has been awe inspiring to see how just one idea has created such a huge impact already with just a relatively small number who are aware of it."