Fellow Africamers

You may have read Jacqui's (Nkorho Lodge Owner) post regarding the Project that she, her husband Dirk, and Karin have undertaken, regarding the Nursery School in the Gottenberg Rural Village. If you haven't, already, you can read it HERE. (Tue, 25/11/2008 - 8:46pm)  Pictures of the school and the kids have been posted in the Photos Taken By Nkorho Staff thread, HERE. (Thurs. 27/11/2008 - 8:49am)  The following is an excerpt from one of Jacqui's emails, giving more details about the project and what they found there.

“Nkorho was involved with another nursery school close to the gates of the
>> Sabi Sands Game Reserve and they now have all the necessary equipment to
>> make life easier for these children. One of my staff informed me of the
>> plight of this nursery school in Gottenberg, and said that these children
>> have nothing but I must admit I never thought it was as bad as it is.
>> There are 35 children in a one room, it has a cement floor, the windows
>> have frames but no glass it is really terrible.  We will be painting the
>> classroom and putting up education material on the walls as well as
>> building these children a playground.
>> My children attend Penryn College in Nelspruit and all the children at the
>> college have to do a community project at the end of each year, so that is
>> how the school become involved in the project as well, they have collected
>> toys, balls and blankets for the nursery school.
>> On Monday we will be having a Christmas Party for all these children but
>> I am not even sure if they know what Father Christmas is, I have asked the
>> teachers at the nursery school to explain Father Christmas to the
>> children as Mandy (my daughter) will be dressing up as Father Christmas she is
>> able to speak Shangaan (local black language) and will thus be able to speak to each child.”

Shortly after Jacque made her post, Sonja (WildDreamer) and I both contacted Karin and Jacqui, asking how we could help with this project. We have since been involved in discussions with Jacqui as to how the membership could get involved and make contributions to bring even bigger smiles to these small faces. Jacqui has agreed to accept donations from us, through the Lodge. The email address there is info@nkorho.com. This may change, but for the moment it will work. Anyone wishing to contribute can email Jacqui there and request a Credit Card Authorization Form which will be sent by return email. For those who have security concerns about this method, I have suggested that perhaps we can send the last 4 or 8 digits of credit card numbers, directly to Jacqui on her personal email. I'm sure this will be acceptable to her. She will keep a balance sheet, listing donations (presumably without names) and itemizing how the moneys are spent. I will also find out if those who are reluctant to use an on line method to send contributions, may do so through the mail, using personal check or International Money Order.

Another thing I'm not sure of , but will find out the answer to, is if the contributions need to be in ZAR (South African Rand) or if they can be in US dollars or other currency. (if they do need to be in ZAR, the conversion to US $ is quite easy, since the Rand is worth almost exactly $0.10 US, so 100 Rand is $10.00, 1000 Rand $100.00, etc.)  Other currency conversions may be found at http://www.xe.com/ucc/

Lots of unanswered questions, but we WILL get the answers.

In time, we, the membership, may decide that we would like our contributions to go to specific things. This forum will be open to discussions of any such ideas people may have.

Speaking for myself, I would love to see this Project take on a life of it's own, and be an ongoing effort to bring a better life to this one small village and it's children. I, personally prefer to be involved in something like this, where I am assured that 100 cents out of every dollar goes to the cause itself, rather than to the administration of the fund!

One last thing.................We have Campbell Scott's permission to use the boma to promote this effort, and to solicit contributions, but I want to make it clear that this is a Nkorho Project, involving the ownership and staff of Nkorho Lodge, AND the membership, but not an Africam project.

We're sincerely hoping that the membership will get on board with this effort and make it successful.

Roger & Sonja