Curro explains charity

Sean Friedenthal, Executive Head, Curro Century City

The Curro Century City photo and caption published in Tabletalk on June 22 have had reactions on social media.

On June 20 Curro Century City submitted the following to your publication: Curro Century City had a “clothes to good programme”, whereby learners donated second hand clothing which in turn will be given to street vendors to sell.

This helps create income for people who are trying to make ends meet. The clothes weighed two tons in total, we are so proud of Curro Century City learners and families.

It was brought to our attention on Friday June 24, that there have been some negative social media comments from the Table View community regarding the photo and the context regarding the collection and redistribution of the second-hand clothing.

We would like to reassure the community that the school did not donate the collected clothing directly to street vendors for extra income. The collection and redistribution of the second-hand clothing is currently being facilitated by our charity partner called Clothes to Cash Exchange (C2CX).

Curro Century City and Clothes to Cash Exchange (C2CX) teamed up to create a clothes to good programme. C2CX buys second-hand clothing from schools, which C2CX then sells on to informal traders (at a very small margin) who in turn, sell these clothes in their communities.

The funds our school will receive from C2CX will be used for the “clothes to play” project to support early childhood development (ECD) at day care centres in the area.

This was a wonderful opportunity for us to spring clean our closets, and engage our children in a social awareness project. The value is not only in teaching our children to give, but explaining the entire process to them – how their donations will create businesses that will support people, long after the initial donation. We look forward to teaching our children to use creative solutions to address social challenges, thereby helping to make our country a better place.

To learn more about the C2CX programme, visit: www.c2cx.co.za