Building hope for kids

17-04-2014
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The Herald
Source

A NELSON Mandela Bay farm school characterised by crammed classrooms and a shortage of teachers – which forces them to teach more that one grade at a time – will soon get some much needed relief after a group of cyclists raised R30 000 towards the construction of new classrooms.

Driven by their vision of “One Grade, One Teacher, One Classroom”, Wouter van der Westhuizen, Steve Bonaconsa, Matt Collins and Brian Colloty are on a mission to raise R50 000 for the construction of four additional classrooms for Elukholweni Farm School near Sardinia Bay.

So far R30 000 has been raised and deposited into the school’s bank account and will be used to build two classrooms to start with.

The team raised the cash through the Elukholweni Cycle Tour, which saw them cycling to Cape Town on March 29, arriving in the Mother City on April 4.

Elukholweni principal, Lungi Gotyana, said they were very grateful to everyone who had contributed.

“More people are still coming in to contribute. It’s very difficult to teach more than one grade at a time,” she said.

The funds raised by the Elukholweni Cycle Tour were brought in through individual sponsors, the community and fundraisers organised by individual cyclists.

Van der Westhuizen said they would continue working towards their goal of building four classrooms.

“We’ll just continue to make people aware of the need, so that more people can reach out to the school.”

With the school being privately funded, it relies on fundraising initiatives to keep it going.