This is my first post using the new blog feature in MS Word. Let's see how it goes.
The title refers to your friend and mine, jungle, who I am convinced has one agenda and that is to prove the South African business is fundamentally racist. It would seem that he is not alone – here is an email I received from Nina Venjakob of Out of the box. I am not really shocked but I am disgusted. Having said that I know Nina well and there is no way she would allow this to get in her way. So if you have some money please consider a donation.
Once upon a time....
A city councillor paid a visit to the Out of the Box Skills Development Centre. He was very impressed with the work that we do and with the results that we achieve. He explained that his ward was the poorest one in our city, but he would love to have his people skilled and to give them a future. I sent him the budgets and heard nothing back for a while. Then I had an email asking when the courses start. I explained that we were ready to start teaching new courses. The second we had ten people in a course and the fees paid, we could rush out and buy the materials and tools needed to start teaching. A few days later I sent a reminder stating that of course the teachers also needed to be notified ahead of time whether they would be teaching or not.
Imagine my surprise when, out of the blue 30 eager and excited people arrived at the centre to attend screen printing, woodwork and sewing courses. We decided that we could, in the mean time, teach with what we had and everybody settled in. I went off to contact the councillor to enquire about the fees. I left message after message and sent email after email, to no avail. Finally, on Thursday he answered the phone. His comment was: "I did not respond because there is no money."
I asked for a meeting.
In the meeting I suggested that we contact his Corporate and Government contacts, that I would accompany him to meetings and would do a presentation to try and raise the money. I just could not see taking the hope away from the people now that they had a glimpse of a future and were so excited. The next second he accused me of being racist because all my teachers are not black. I, much to my embarrassment, lost it! It had been a tough week and a tough Friday. I asked him to leave and resolved to find the money, somehow and to not let the people down.
Please could you help me contact anybody who may be compassionate and supportive?
We now have a tax number and a PBO number - all donations can be claimed back from SARS.
It also adds points to their BEE Scorecard.
Every rand will help to make a difference.
Most sincerely
Nina Venjakob (MD)
Out of the Box Education Account
Standard Bank
Melville
Branch Code 006 105
Account number 20-794-006-1
S
ponsored by:
Rotary International.
(The Rotary Clubs of Parktown Excalibur and Toronto East)
Section 21 Company - Reg. No. 2000 – 00 – 27 – 71 – 08
PBO Reference Number – 930027269
Income Tax Reference Number – 9654/048/14/0
www.outofthebox.org.za
Greymont Office (27) (011) 673 6592- Fax: 086 510 2579
Germiston Skills Centre - (011) 872 0967 tel/fax (011) 872 0968
Nina - 083 583 5383
JOB CREATION THROUGH SKILLS TRAINING: The Centre is developing at a rapid rate. We are there when we have classes running so give a shout and come and visit! The show room is open so you will be able to purchase all your gifts and art from Out of the Box! We are at The Pavilion, corner Refinery and Power Roads, Germiston. This Centre will create a future for thousands of South Africans and become a wonderful tourist attraction and gift and decor centre in Gauteng. We can make all your dreams - corporate gifts, trophies, awards. We create wonderful art exhibitions in your corporate space, creating jobs for artists at the same time. If we don't have it, we will make it for YOU!
We work with so many different charities so please, never throw anything out. Please donate your tools, furniture, cement, paint, patterns, sewing and knitting machines, fabrics, beads, etc. to a worthy cause! We do not throw anything away!