Africa: The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, together with the Mark Headbush Foundation, today officially launched the 16th Annual Mayoral Charity Golf Day at PE Golf Club.
The Mayoral Charity Golf Day will be held on October 21, 2022, to raise funds for education initiatives in underprivileged communities.
Over the years, the Mayoral Charity has grown to be one of the premium business and social networking programmes.
This year’s golf day will help to generate funds to meet the critical early childhood education needs within various communities throughout the Metro.
The donation of funds will result in the building of long-term infrastructure and facilities that will improve the quality of education.
The Executive Mayor of the NMBM, Cllr Eugene Johnson, said that over the past 16 years, her office had raised more than R4 million thanks to donations from the public and private sectors and from individuals.
“The Mayoral Golf Day continues to draw huge corporations, top businesses, and other good Samaritans to go deeper into their pockets to invest in our children’s future,” she said.
“The emphasis is on early childhood because we feel that children are the best investment we can make if we are to achieve the countless goals of our society, which demand capable brains with the proper hearts and minds,” she said.
“I pledge to help the Mark Headbush Foundation fulfil its mission of making a difference in the lives of learners in the early learner stage,” said Mayor Johnson.
“l am inviting male and female golfers to participate in this tournament,” she said.
Speaking at the launch, Mandla Tisani, Chairperson of the Mark Headbush Foundation, said that the foundation aims to make a difference in the early learning phase, focusing on learners from the age of 0 to nine years.
He said that the foundation encourages stakeholders to invest in their communities in order to upskill needy young talent.
“We strongly believe that a lot of talent gets lost because it was never given a chance to grow and progress,” said Tisani.
“A lot of young lives are lost, and their potential is also lost; society ends up dealing with a lot of kids who become criminals, and some give birth at a young age simply because they were not given the opportunity to find something in themselves that would help them make a better life for themselves and the communities in which they live,” he said.
Also speaking at the launch was Ntsiki Bono, from Elundini Primary School, one of the schools which has enormously benefited from the programme. She attested that the initiative has changed the learning conditions in the school and motivated many kids to go to school. “Our school knocked on the door of the foundation to build grade R classes,” she said.
Bono said that building Grade R classrooms has made it possible for children to do their work in a safe and spacious environment.
