Welcome
On the 28th of May, Adopt-a-School Foundation held its second fundraiser in London. The event, sponsored by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and hosted by our chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa, raised in excess of R5 million.
Over 250 individuals from multinational organisations supported us and guests included the recently crowned Miss World, Rolene Strauss, the SA High Commissioner, Obed Mlaba, and Deputy High Commissioner, Bongiwe Qwabe. We are extremely grateful for the wonderful generosity of our British supporters and look forward to returning.
Our fundraising efforts continue to gain momentum during the second half of 2015 and our 9th Back to School Party in Johannesburg will be held on 12 September. We are looking forward to hosting a unique and entertaining evening of fun-filled fundraising. To book your seat or table in support of our education initiatives, please contact Mmasa Nkgadima.
On 2 July we are hosting the first Back to School Party for the KST’s Free State Whole School Development programme. This event will be held at Emoya Estate in Bloemfontein and those wishing to support us may contact Melanie Spencer.
Some of our staff was privileged to travel to India in April as guests of the WIPRO WATIS programme. WATIS (Wipro Applying Thought in Schools) works on building capacities in school education reform in India. Each year they host a Partner’s Forum. Two Adopt-a-School Foundation programme managers attended this event and were exposed to India’s best practices in education investment and the work of civil society organisations in the country.
We are also excited to be working with the Mandela Foundation this year to promote our Back to School for a Day on Mandela Day initiative. On 9 June we will host a briefing breakfast for companies looking to support education initiatives in honour of Madiba on International Nelson Mandela Day.
I trust you enjoy our May newsletter. We share photographs from our recent trip to our adopted schools in Lesotho and we share news of an exciting partnership involving a national architecture competition. We also share the exciting opportunities high school girl learners from adopted schools are exposed to through the Cell C Foundation. I hope you will share our work with your network and help in promoting our volunteerism and fundraising initiative.
Regards,
Stephen Lebere
Executive Director
