Sinebhongo Rainbow Village

It was a full house when Yvette and Dick gave a talk about their visit to South Africa last October with Honorary Rotarian Joy McQuade. Fourteen clubs in District 1140 donated funds to Phase I of the Sinebhongo homes, so Yvette had invited the other 13 clubs to join us for the evening. We were delighted to welcome visitors from six of them:

Other visitors included Past President of Shepperton Peter Mansell (now a member of Woking Club) and his wife Beryl, Mary Pitfield, Joy Painter, Gillian Corrie, David and Barbara Campbell-Burns, Judy and Richard Parsons, Joy McQuade, Ann Dethick, Carole Fear, Jean Wilson, Margaret Hewes and Gaynor Barber. Yvette hosted Julia Vockrodt and Charlotte Delaforce from VP Communications, who funded two houses.

For her talk, Yvette used the web site to illustrate the history of the project both in Shepperton and in East London; then Dick ran a video of the visit that showed views of the squatter camp and the village, plus footage of the celebration ceremony with lots of singing and dancing.

Yvette explained how the project started with an inspirational speech at the RIBI Conference in April 1998 by Glen Kinross the President of Rotary International, a blunt Aussie, who spoke of the hardship he had seen in his travels around the world.

He said that people were living in appalling conditions and if they had been dogs they would be shot. But they weren't dogs, so we turn our backs and leave them to their fate.

He challenged us to help them. He also told us about a new initiative he had pioneered called low cost shelters, which were homes for families to be built with local materials and costing $2,000 each.

That evening over a few whiskies we agreed that we wanted to do something, and decided to set ourselves a target of funding fifty houses to commemorate out 50th anniversary the following year. The rest, as they say, is history.

Glen W Kinross, President of Rotary International addressing the Conference
(Photo by Peter Mansell)

Earlier that month, in East London South Africa, Rotarian Tony Wheals got lost on his way to renewing his driving licence and found himself in the midst of a squatter camp. For the first time he saw with his own eyes the conditions in which people were living and decided that Rotary should help.

Tony inspired his Club with his dream of building a new village. He worked on plans and inspired four other clubs in and around East London to join in. They looked to Rotary overseas for help and that is how we joined up with them. So did a group of clubs in the USA. Phase I of Sinebhongo Village has 100 homes and an EduCare Centre.

All the homes have electricity, running water and proper sewage handling. District 1140 funded 48 of these homes, with our Club paying for 16 of them. In addition we paid for a further 8 by matching funds with clubs in East London. The rest were funded by Rotary Zone 32 which includes clubs on the East coast of the United States of America. Because we reached our target and raised funds to pay for 50 homes, we have the money for a further 26 in the bank awaiting Phase II. This is for a further 70 homes and is just starting to move ahead. This time we hope to match our funds with a District in Canada. We have learned that the Buffalo City Municipality has approved plans for a total of 400 homes in the immediate area.

Schoolgirls returning home at midday

Picture above shows schoolgirls returning home at midday.

I'd like to thank you all for the tremendous support you gave to the fund raising activities for this project. Everyone helped in their own way and it made all the difference to know that the entire club was behind it. I have included a list of our fund-raising activities on the next page as a reminder. Pride is not a good thing, but we can make an exception in this case. Sinebhongo is a Xhosa word that means to be proud and I believe that we can be proud of our achievement. President Yvette.