Supporting the Pumla Special Needs School in Soweto

Supporting the Pumla Special Needs School in Soweto

Photo: This is our amazing friend George (left)

On the 17th of April, the IRAS team had the distinct pleasure of working with my friend George Makunga to deliver shoes to children attending a special needs school in Soweto.

George is amazing!

Earning just over R5 000 per month after 11 years of service at Woolworths, George somehow manages to exclude himself from any discussion of the “disadvantaged”.

For the past three years, George has made a personal commitment to donate school shoes to disadvantaged special needs learners in his community, and this year he chose the Pumla Special Needs School in Orlando West, Soweto.

For those who haven’t yet met George, he technically qualifies as “disabled”, in that he was born with the effects of Cerebral Palsy – one leg that doesn’t work properly, one arm that is somewhat impaired, and a significant speech impediment – but that doesn’t stop him from being an incredibly hard working individual. I’ve known George since 2010, when he was the last member of the Soweto Marimba Youth League (SMYLe) that I chose to travel to Canada as part of our programme to give learners from several high schools in Soweto a vision of what “could be” as long as they were willing to live up to our motto: Where you get to in life isn’t a function of where you begin, but of how hard you’re willing to work to get there.

Never did I imagine that 14 years later, I would be supporting George’s community development project, the “Light of Hope SA”, nor did I envision being able to help George while also supporting the great work of My Walk and the National Council of and for Persons with Disabilities (NCPD).

To support My Walk, IRAS purchased 588 pairs of school shoes that are made from recycled IV drip bags. An amazing project that was jointly developed by Adcock Ingram and Netcare. For every 20 IV drip bags produced by Adcock and used by Netcare, My Walk recycles the plastic to produce a fantastic pair of shoes that sell for only R35.00 (less than $2 US dollars). IRAS is committed to donating more than 4 000 pairs of shoes in 2024, after donating more than 3 000 pairs in 2023.

To support the NCPD, IRAS purchased 600 green Casual Day bucket hats that were produced as part of the NCPD’s annual fundraising programme to support hundreds of charities providing support to persons with disabilities throughout South Africa. Their Casual Day fundraising raises much-needed funding that is shared among an inventory of projects that have been vetted by the NCPD team to ensure that they have the proper governance in place to maximise the impact of every Rand they receive.

Giving the shoes and hats to the learners, educators and support staff at Pumla Special School provided the IRAS team with yet another reminder that the work we do, assisting companies with the ESG/Sustainability reporting, gives us a very important opportunity to have a positive socioeconomic impact on the communities in which we operate.

Many thanks to all of our clients for being partners in the impact that we achieve: Isuzu South Africa, Metair Investments, Next Source Minerals, Prizma Solutions, Trident Energy, Tullow Oil and Verod Capital.

– Michael H Rea, Managing Partner

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Scroll to Top