Debbie Engelbrecht, executive operations director, Up To Me
I am writing to you as a director of Up To Me (252-589 NPO) with reference to the article titled “Wolwerivier gets a library”, published in Tabletalk on September 14.
Firstly, thank you for showing an interest in the communities you service and for taking the time to rectify some of the inconsistencies and errors in the previous article, through the publication of this letter.
The best way we see how to do this is to give a rundown of events and people and the enormous roles played by all through a hugely collaborative effort.
The library was brought to fruition by Up To Me with an amazing group of youth volunteers from the community doing all the preparation work, which included fixing the infrastructure and painting walls, setting up space, getting the books donated, sorting and cataloguing of books, negotiating the space with Nikki Pretorius from Sunshine School and preparing the 18 square metres to be ready for their community.
They also organised and prepared for the opening event, which was a huge success thanks to many and varied committed community members, NPOs and donors.
The six extremely hard-working founding members are: Linamandla Mtshiyo, Sinokuhle Mankayi, Anathi Nokane, Jenniffer (Anathi) Lobi, Thimna Ndlebende and Zintle Quekeni. We salute you.
Our immense gratitude goes to Nikki from Sunshine School who did not hesitate for a second to “make a plan” and find a space for us to set up, donating as much infrastructure and equipment as she possibly could.
The inaugural event on September 3 was met with much fanfare and many honoured guests – some of whom have had a dream for a little library in Wolwerivier for many years.
The opening event was catered for by Projects for People (Christiana Groenewoud) and Little Wolves NPC (Magdalene Minnaar). We were entertained by Wolwerivier Early Childhood Development Centre, Indy Kawana (song and dance) and Sisonke Youth Development, Zwai and Marietha Lange (modelling and song) as well as with a wonderful demonstration from Karate Kyousei under the leadership of Carol-Ann Daniels. After this, the great unveiling of the founding members and the ribbon-cutting closed the proceedings.
A special mention also goes to the students from Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) Radiology Department who played an important role in the collection of books, enabling us to fill the shelves. They called their group (Isandla – The Hand That Gives)
Our further gratitude goes to the surrounding community of Morningstar and their support for the project. Here Suzanne van Heerden from Zonnekus Holiday Resort and Charmaine Engelbrecht a long-term supporter of the Wolwerivier community comes to mind. We also want to thank Christiana and Projects for People for their role of securing additional books for us as mentioned in the previous article.
We truly believe that this tiny space is able to set the community up for many more successes and our mission now, is to equip the space with additional laptops, enabling the founding members and volunteers to pay it forward even further, with PC training and additional digital learning opportunities for their community. We cannot wait to see this happening. Should any of your readers find that they are in a position to assist they are welcome to contact us by emailing info@uptome.org.za or calling 061 488 2709.
Thank you again for your willingness to publish the corrected version of events and we do hope that we will have many more success articles for you in the future.
