Dear friends, Many moons ago, when I first became an intrepid explorer (namely jumping on a plane and heading to South Africa) you may remember me asking for your support. Delve around there a little in your memories… yep you’re got it… support to help an impoverished school in Limpopo rebuild classrooms that had been damaged by a lightning storm. My target at the time was £500 (via www.justgiving. com/tracybrookshaw) and I, with the help of all you generous souls, raised a whopping £713 and 65p for Mabunda Primary School. So what happened to the money? And why has it taken so long for an update? I hear you cry! Well yes, two reasonable questions I can concur. So firstly I feel I should apologise for the delay in informing you of how your hard earned pennies were spent, the amazing truth is they were not spent until quite recently. Really what can I say… those of you that are familiar with and love South Africa know that things there don’t happen overnight! However things generally do not take four years to implement, thankfully! So let me start at the beginning… after raising funds in 2009 the South African government stepped in to assist Mabunda School. With this assistance came newly built classrooms, a library, even a wall around the perimeter of the school grounds. Great news right! However, with all this development our funding became a little redundant, in terms of rebuilding classrooms anyway. So with the monies
safely transferred into the Honorary Rangers bank account (a very proactive bunch of volunteers working for South African National Parks SANParks) I started to liaise through them and a wonderful woman from SANParks, whom I met whilst in South Africa and who I will later name. So email tennis ensued with correspondence bouncing back and forth between continents as to the needs of the Mabunda School. These were in turn followed by vast periods of noncommunication when we waited a response from the school (telecommunications are not easy in remote areas of Africa) or I was consumed by work in Southeast Asia too preoccupied to chase emails. My idea, at first, had been to fund books and a carpet for the new library, however these were not the wishes of the school. They came back to me with the request for road signage to direct visitors to the school and a school sign board on the gates, to which I quite flatly and obstinately refused. I was in the mindset; this money MUST benefit the children. So months… years passed… and little developed. Then I received word that Mabunda Primary would like support for football kits for their school team. Honestly my first reaction was, ok but what about the girls!?! However resolved to get the money spent and I agreed to the purchase.Today, writing to you all and revisiting the photographs of the boys in their brand spanking new football kit, some smiling broadly, some sternly serious, I realised the goodness of this purchase. Together, we have instilled a pride in Mabunda’s football team, in these boys, and in turn a pride in their school. They can visit other schools in the surrounding area, play like sissies or bend it like Beckham, either way who cares!? They can play with their heads held high and their chests puffed out in a very fetching blue strip.
I feel we have invested in their left feet, their right feet and in their future as individuals and as team players. Look closely at the photographs, at each of their faces, any one of them could be the next Rooney, only way better looking. And to the girls… well they of course get a slice of the school pride, they get to cheer on their team, they may even be encouraged enough to start their own girls team, yet there is far greater benefit than that… they get boys in shorts! C’mon ladies, you have to agree, 90 minutes of kicking a ball around, please! It’s ALL about the legs, right!?! So a HUGE thank you to you all for your wonderful generosity, without which there would have been no project. Thank you also to the Letaba Honorary Rangers for their active role in implementing the project, Kevin Moore of SANParks for his words of wisdom and networking, Kirsteen McLeish and Ben Swanepoel for encouraging me to fund raise in the first place. GVI Charitable Trust for administration of the collected funds. And finally to the woman whom lived up to her namesake, Patience Mdungasi for her coordination, diligence and introduction to the Mopane worm (an experience neither of us will easily forget). Thank you all for your faith in me to pull this project together. I got there in the end!
Tracy Myself, Kirsteen and Patience at Mabunda Primary in January 2009. Note the difference in infrastructure to the more recent photographs.