July 24, 2011. Project Build and the Elan Foundation combined to provide desperately needed assistance to the New Guelderland School on the North Coast this Mandela Day (July 18, 2011).
See our picture gallery below
Members of the KZN North Coast community and companies which wanted to get involved in the project were asked to assist in any way possible. Some put together teams of friends and colleagues and got stuck in, while others gave financial assistance.
Representatives from Princes Grant, FNB Bank, FFS Refiners, Web Communications, SA Rugby Legends, Sibaya Casino and Entertainment World, Grace Church North Coast, KZN Oils, Expand-A-Sign, Grinrod Management, Agri IQ, and East Coast Radio all responded to the call of Mandela Day to give 67 minutes of their time.
On the morning of Madiba’s birthday, in just a few hours, the entire rural farm school bordering Blythedale Coastal Resort received a much-needed lick of paint.
Started by the Stewart family on the New Guelderland sugar cane farm, New Guelderland School (NGS) still resembles the original farm school which was established for the children of farm labourers a few decades ago. Now there are 13 passionate teachers, one of which is a graduate of NGS, and more than 300 pupils in the school in 13 classes from Grade R to Grade 9!
The New Guelderland School has been operating since January of this year as a “no fee” school and relies heavily on donations for necessities and learning materials to conduct schooling effectively. The school is on the national school-feed programme, which means that pupils get a cooked meal each day . . . sometimes their only hot meal in the day.
“NGS was our chosen beneficiary for Mandela Day 2011 as the eLan Foundation, the section-21 arm of the eLan Property group, has adopted this school. We never dreamed that our initiative would receive as much support as it did,” said Melanie Clarkson of the eLan Foundation. “Even the Mayor of Ilembe, Welcome Mdaba, arrived decked out in this orange overalls to put in a few hours.”
Role models
And when addressing the crowd, Mayor Mdaba encouraged the volunteers and teachers saying that: “You are these children’s role models. The work that you are doing here emulates the very man whose birthday we are celebrating today!”
Project Build has been building educational buildings in Kwa-Zulu Natal for 30 years and has built 5300 classrooms to date, in spite of this, Monday’s project was particularly meaningful for them.
“By the end of the day the classrooms looked just terrific, painted either in lovely yellow, mint green, cream or blue. Some teams even worked for four hours! The kids will love coming to school now. We felt so privileged to give back to this little school – I really don’t think they knew what was coming,” Suzanne Edmunds, CEO of Project Build, said with a smile.
Info: If you can help in any way, or would like to get involved in efforts to improve facilities and funding for the New Guelderland School, contact Elan’s Melanie Clarkson at melanie@elan.co.za, or call 082 857 0472.