The SOS Africa Charity reached another significant milestone as it completed its first education centre building project and officially opened its doors to the SOS Africa children.
SOS Africa was founded by Frome resident, Matt Crowcombe, during his gap year to South Africa in 2003 to fund the education and care of disadvantaged children. Thanks to the support of its Shepton Mallet charity shop, local fundraising events and sponsors from around the world, the charity now funds four education programmes across four different regions of the country.
The most ambitious education project in the charity’s 16-year history, “The Dudley Rotary Education Centre” designed by Matt’s partner Claudia has been fully-funded by SOS Africa sponsor Dudley Rotary Club. It has a timber frame and Nutek plank outer cladding with full insulation to cope with extreme weather conditions.
Completed in just 25 days, the multi-functional educational facility is designed to facilitate all aspects of the charity’s education programmes, providing two classrooms, a staff room, kitchen, library, counselling room and outside learning space.
The education centre will have an immediate impact upon the lives of children from the local township communities, providing support to children with learning difficulties every morning and a holistic education programme to scholarship scheme children every afternoon. This enables the charity to support both the children who struggle most in the classroom and those from the poorest families.
SOS Africa’s Matt and Claudia are currently in South Africa supervising the project. They said, “It is a proud moment for our grassroots charity – designing education centres which are fit-for-purpose enables us to increase the standard of education we can provide to our children.
“It was a special moment when the doors of the brand-new education centre opened to our staff and children for the first time. This building will have an incredible impact on their development over the coming years.
“We would like to thank everyone involved in the design and building process right through to the painting, decorating and cleaning; it has been a formidable team effort! A big thank you also to Dudley Rotary Club and our incredible support base here in Somerset for making this possible.”
For more details please contact Matt Crowcombe: matt@sosafrica.com
