By Nicci Hayes, Principal of Holy Cross School
Riebeeck East Combined School used Mandela Day as an opportunity to honour some of the school’s sponsors and volunteers. The Sunshine Club, headed by Este Coetzee, is a group of three volunteers who run weekly Creative Arts workshops incorporating aspects of technology. Amanzi: Water to Schools is a US-based NGO founded by Julia Heemstra that focuses on ensuring that school children have adequate amounts of safe water to drink, and hygienic sanitation facilities.
Beyond this, Amanzi seeks to build bridges and connections to other educational opportunities and has just sponsored a water tank farm, a new waterless ablution facility, and a water purification system for the school. The R1.8 million project is due to be completed this month and learners are already able to take bottles of clean water home to their families.
Department of Education representative, Mr Mayola thanked the NGO for the generous gesture. In addition to the enhanced dignity that this project will bring to the learners, Heemstra hopes that the MOU signed with the NGO will go a long way to ensuring that the school stays open for many years to come. On-site to film the event and the renovation project was the film crew from Rope Line Media. Principal Thobile Ncula thanked all the stakeholders who had made this work possible. The learners treated the guests to a variety of dance and song items.
