17 July 2014 – Forty South African companies will tomorrow (18 July 2014) head back to school for a day in honour of Nelson Mandela International Day. This is part of the third annual Back to School for a Day initiative organised by Adopt-a-School Foundation. Over 45 schools are ready to benefit from the time and skills of hundreds of volunteers armed with paint brushes, gardening tools and much needed resources for classrooms.
Libraries, classrooms, administration facilities and feeding scheme kitchens are receiving make-overs, complete with much needed resources, such as stoves, printers, food items, cupboards, furniture, stationery, chalkboards and books. Volunteers will don overalls and gardening gloves to beautify the school environment. Not only are companies making a significant monetary investment in the renovations of these schools, but corporate volunteers are going above and beyond the 67 minutes in honour of Madiba to dedicate a full day to service these schools. In addition, over 50 schools will benefit from a donation of paper by stationery giant, Waltons. The estimated monetary value of all projects has reached over R2 million.
Adopt-a-School Foundation’s Deputy Chairperson James Motlatsi will be planting trees at Tshilidzi Primary School in Soweto. Executives from Adopt-a-School’s corporate partners will join him at this school, which is one of the very first schools adopted by the Foundation more than 12 years ago.
Back to School for a Day is an Adopt-a-School corporate volunteer initiative that encourages companies to go back to school and make a difference through donating their time, knowledge, skills and resources.
Since the initiative began in 2012, over 55 companies and over 2,000 volunteers have taken part. Over 100 schools around the country have benefited and tens of thousands of learners have benefited from a variety of activities. In addition to the physical makeovers, activities have also included career guidance programmes, debating workshops, literacy activities and motivational talks.
It has been tremendous to see how corporate partners have come together over the last three years to make a difference in the lives of learners across the country.
