Lynn Pan and her family visited African Angels in 2019 and have remained committed to helping support the work we do. Lynn and her family have brought us much needed resources for many of our projects: Her husband, Christopher, sourced football kits from FCBESCOLA which is the football academy of the Barcelona football club; she recently facilitated the funding for the tiling of our girls’ hostel at African Angels; and, when we needed to refurbish the hub as the premises for our new social enterprise, it was Lynn who proposed our project to the AEGIS CHARITABLE TRUST based in Jersey, U.K. and came to our aid once again.
The Chintsa East Community ‘Hub’
The Chintsa East Community Learning Centre was established in 2017 in the Chintsa East community, as a joint project between African Angels, Friends of Chintsa, Great Kei Municipality and the Chintsa East Community. This container based facility was originally donated by Express Petroleum and established, with the support of the Vodacom Foundation, as a community located computer lab and book exchange.
The ‘hub’ as the centre is affectionately known, has been operated and managed by African Angels since 2019 and opens Monday to Friday to enable people to use laptops and the internet. Wifi is available free and uncapped, thanks to the generosity of Herotel (previously Border Internet), to all within range.
In 2020, African Angels decided to establish the social enterprise – Angels Reusable Pads, that creates a circular economy helping fund the African Angels Independent School, training and employing local residents, and helping girls stay in school by providing them with washable and reusable sanitary pads. Utilising the underutilised book container at the ‘hub’ made sense, but some modifications were needed to ensure the enterprise staff had a safe, compliant, secure and hygienic facility to work.
African Angels’ Social Enterprise takes shape
It is thanks to the generosity of the EFG Foundation and Lynn’s advocacy, that we have completely enclosed the space between the two containers, laid a slab and tiled floor, installed a ceiling, windows, fire door, a toilet, a small kitchenette and lighting throughout, to create a comfortable (and legal) working environment for our sewing team. With the intention of providing a proper working space for our team, we are also planting some trees and gardens around the facility, and are paving previously wet and muddy areas. One of the fathers at African Angels was been contracted to do the work and we expect to start sewing at the beginning of March.
Others who are supporting this project
Thanks to a Swiss Foundation we have the sewing machines and overlocker. One local South African supporter has provided start-up capital to cover the training period to ensure that the team is able to produce a quality product. Stay tuned for all the pictures of our sewing ladies in action and the finished product.
