Grootbos Foundation

Grootbos Foundation, with the help of the Rotary Club of Munich, recently donated new school shoes to the children of three Early Childhood Development Centres in Masakhane, an informal settlement neighbouring Gansbaai’s industrial area. The aim of the initiative was to encourage young children to get excited about their education, literacy and starting school, and Grootbos Foundation hopes the shoes will do just that. “We hope to see these children in their new shoes when they return for school next term but we suspect that they may hide them away for safe-keeping so that they can start big school with brand new shoes next year,” said Penelope Goemans, Communications Officer for Grootbos Foundation.

Further afield, Grootbos Foundation’s Sports Programme Manager, Natasha Bredekamp, attended the Laureus Global Summit held in London, UK. Sport has the potential to have a monumental impact on the lives of children and we are excited to see what new ideas and connections Natasha will bring back to implement in the Gansbaai and Stanford sports programmes. The largest gathering of Sport for Good stakeholders in the world ended with a call to increase funding into targeted programming for girls and young women; they pledged to lead global research into gender equity and the role that programmes play in empowering young women and girls through sport. After three days of discussion at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, the Laureus Sport for Good Summit, presented by Nike’s ‘Made To Play’ commitment to get kids moving, produced a coalition of influencers and decision-makers from across the international sport-for-development community, with a common mission: to prioritise the wellbeing of young women and girls through the power of sport.

Over 244,000 children and young people are impacted by the work of Laureus Sport for Good, which supported 304 programmes in 42 countries and territories with funding, training and other assistance over the last year.