‘Education is the only way out of poverty’

Shout Foundation’s founders, Danny Koppel and Kabelo Mabalane, who founded the charity institution following the murder of reggae artist Lucky Dube in 2007, believe the only way to keep the youth out of poverty and prison is through education.

The two musicians made these remarks when they received a cheque for R2 million from Steers to help them continue with their dream of building Seed Libraries in various schools across the country.

Speaking at the cheque handover at Alexandra’s Carter Primary School, Koppel said he was dumbfounded by what he called the senseless murder of Dube in Rosettenville, south of Johannesburg, in what was believed to have been a hijacking gone wrong.

“I then approached my musician friend, Kabelo and asked him to team up with me so we could do something that would help keep our youth out of prison and away from committing some of these heinous crimes. He never hesitated and here we are today,” said Koppel.

For his part, Mabalane, better known by his first name in music circles, Kabelo, said he firmly believed and bought into the idea and the two musicians marched on and formed Shout, for a better and safer South Africa.

Kabelo said the foundation initially recorded various music pieces, which sought to stimulate love and laughter and general kind-heartedness among South Africans, but over the years, realised the source of hatred and anger and decided to tackle it at the source – education.

“I firmly believe that education is the only way out of poverty as amplified by Madiba. It was at this juncture that we decided that in order to keep our youth out of poverty and prison, it was through increasing their literacy levels, hence we decided to embark on building libraries around schools in the country,” Kabelo said.

One such library was built last year and they decided to use it as a launch pad for their next library projects. The first library project using the donation from Steers was ordered for Midrand.

When asked by Alex News why Midrand, marketing executive of Steers, Adolf Fourie, said Midrand was their hometown as it housed Steer’s headquarters and processing plant. “We felt it was ideal not only to reward the need that exists in Midrand for such a facility, but we also wanted to pay back to the community where our biggest footprint is located.

“The exact school to benefit from this donation will be identified by the Shout Foundation from their extensive research and interaction with the community to locate where the need was dire.”

Read: Playing for education

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