According to the American National Retail Federation” Valentine’s Day Consumer Spending Survey, conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics, 90.8% of consumers plan to treat their significant others to something special for the consumer holiday. Half of them will spend the money on chocolates, spending a total of $1.7 billion, and an estimated $1.9 billion will be spent on flowers (37.8%). So why not set yourself apart and take this as your big opportunity to show your creative side? In February it was time for the social committee of Jenman African Safaris to plan their monthly social event. As February is the month of love and appreciation the social committee team decided, to flip this whole Valentine’s thing around. Instead of hearts, fancy chocolates and champagne, we created a Jenman Appreciation Social Event, an opportunity to for team members to show how much they appreciate each other, personally and as a colleague.
Jenman African Safaris staff had a fundraising drive to spread this feeling of love and appreciation. Dingani Primary has over 300 pupils between the ages of 4 and 12 years old. The school is in dire need of equipment and maintenance and the children often lack for the simplest basics that we would take for granted. Jenman staff members personally donated funds towards the buying of A4 Exercise books for the students, and the Grow Africa Foundation matched their donation reaching a total of 960 books. These books were identified as a much-needed item by the school and will play a role in making the goal of a 50 % pass rate by 2021 achievable. We as an office, have achieved something really meaningful for the children and teachers at Dingani Primary School. The books are currently on their way from Cape Town to Zimbabwe and will be arriving at the school in a couple of weeks.
The future of the world is in the classroom today. At Dingani Primary School, there is currently only 1 teacher for 108 students. We, in collaboration with the school, would like to improve this situation by raising funds for teachers’ salaries (US$200/Month). For each teacher that we sponsor, the school will hire one as well. Furthermore, more than 50% of the students cannot afford the school fees (US$30/ Year). If the students don’t pay their school fees they cannot pass. We are appealing to sponsors for assistance. In the collaborative spirit, parents of sponsored children will contribute 2 hours of assistance to the school per week. If you would like to get involved please contact Pierce at [email protected].
