On Monday, 06 February 2023, learners at Dr Beyer’s Naude Secondary School in Dube, Soweto received a donation of 250 school chairs from the Adopt-a-School Foundation and ChairClub. The donation stemmed from office chairs purchased by various corporates.
What began as a short-term partnership between ChairClub and Adopt-a-School Foundation in May 2020, has continued three years on due to the great need. In May 2020, Adopt-a-School Foundation announced an exciting partnership with ChairClub, a proudly South African and local chair manufacturer, to collaborate on the Buy One, Give One Campaign. The campaign aims to ensure that for every chair sold by ChairClub from its office chair range, a school chair would be donated to disadvantaged schools in rural and urban communities across the country.
The donation marks the eighth school to receive school chairs under the campaign, bringing the total number of donated chairs to 1 237.
According to Dr Beyer’s Naude Secondary School Principal, Ms Mantini, the school is thankful to Adopt-a-School Foundation, ChairClub for the chair donation. The school was experiencing chair shortages for some time now. The school had to seat two learners on one chair, this is while others sat on desks. Some learners would report late for class as they roam around the school looking for chairs, avoiding sitting on desks as it is very uncomfortable. We are very grateful for the kind gesture and we hope to receive more chairs, Ms Mantini concluded.
The school has received a School Leadership Advancement programme and recently received a donation of school shoes as part of the Foundation’s 20th– anniversary celebration. The Foundation adopts schools with the aim to transform them into centres of excellence by implementing its Whole School Development (WSD) Model. The model ensures that schools are equipped in leadership, infrastructure, learning outcomes and critical social services.
In 2022, the Adopt-a-School Foundation celebrated 20 years of improving education delivery to South Africa’s marginalised communities. The Foundation’s success has been driven by partnering with numerous like-minded organisations to meet the needs of 643 schools under its adoption programme across the country.
“The importance of school furniture is undeniably one of the factors that contribute to conducive learning in the classroom.” The donation provides relief to schools that are experiencing severe shortages of school furniture and ensures that schooling continues efficiently,” said Zelda Jacobs, Communications Manager at Adopt-a-School Foundation.
“ChairClub takes great pride in our partnership with Adopt-a-School, it’s a remarkable initiative that does so much towards the development of the future of South Africa. For a Proudly South African brand like ChairClub, its imperative that we contribute and actively participate to ensure learners are given every opportunity to thrive.” Said Lance Katz, ChairClub Managing Director.
Adopt-a-School Foundation and ChairClub encourage businesses to support this initiative by purchasing office chairs to provide much-needed chairs to learners in rural and urban areas of South Africa throughout 2023.
For more information on how to support this initiative, please visit www.adoptaschool.org.za or www.chairclubworld.com
