Christmas arrives early for the Mandela Education Programme
Delivering libraries to rural communities is not as simple as it sounds. A whole army of volunteers are involved in each delivery, and one of our greatest challenges for the last decade, has been the physical delivery of all the suitable books for children along with the items needed inside the library.
Usually the Mandela Education Programme’s open-backed pick up vehicle and trailer are the only vehicles used to transport books and other items, but we have struggled due to their limited space and exposure to rain. (The Mandela Education Programme is an initiative of the Long Walk to Freedom brand in partnership with the Department of Basic Education, the Soul City Institute for Social Justice's Soul Buddyz programme and Rotary International, and is run by non-profit organisation Participate for Good.)
During a recent visit to the WeBuyCars website to see if it was at all possible to upgrade to a panel van, which has an enclosed load bed and larger load capacity, we were pleasantly surprised by the staff's questions about how and where we wanted to use the commercial vehicle.
That’s when Marketing-Director Alexia Kristopher-Koen got involved. She asked whether they could look for the correct vehicle for our needs and if they could potentially help in some way with the costs.
On the 27th of November the Mandela Education Programme was presented with our fantastic Nissan NV350 panel van, complete with our branding, a gift to the charity that will see many years of service and allow us to deliver books more efficiently to many more schools.
What a wonderful team of caring individuals who understand the value of educating the children of South Africa, so they in their own way can play a part in shaping the future of the youth.
An excited Hlubi Mboya-Arnold, our non-executive director in charge of donor relations and fundraising, was on hand to accept the gift.
Thank you WeBuyCars, what a wonderful Christmas we will have delivering our last three libraries of 2020 in Limpopo next week.