Two primary schools and a children’s charity in Alexandra benefited from the Nedbank Back to School Campaign with donations of uniforms, school bags, shoes and stationery.
The donations were made on behalf of Nedbank by the bank’s corporate social investment head Kone Gugushe, with Emfundisweni and Zenzeleni primary schools and the Thuthuzela orphanage in Marlboro benefiting. This formed part of the nationwide project that Nedbank started in 2010 designed to care for the less fortunate members of communities around the country.
Speaking at the handover at Zenzeleni Primary School, Gugushe said the project has visited all the provinces except for Limpopo, which will happen soon. Gugushe said the project aims to help pupils and teachers to improve the standard of education in the country.
“We pride ourselves as Nedbank when we look at the recent matric results and the big improvement in the national pass rate. We are delighted to have made our own contribution to that success through the many school programmes that we run, such as this campaign, the My Career – My Future [campaign], the matric revision sessions on Saturdays, the Nedbank Cup Goals4Goals campaign and many other intervention programmes,” Gugushe said.
Nedbank also donated soccer kits to all the teams in the schools visited as a way of encouraging children to lead active and healthy lifestyles. This year alone, Nedbank has committed R2.5 million to the Back to School campaign, enabling 2 000 pupils nationwide to benefit from the programme.
Welcoming the donations, school principal Thandi Gumede observed that February was regarded as the month of love and “the Nedbank gesture has shown us just how the bank loves our pupils and the community of Alexandra”.
Zenzeleni Primary School’s governing body chairperson Herbert Mlambo called on the marriage between the school and bank to be “cemented” and continue into the “unforeseeable future”.
“This is a marriage made in heaven and should be able to last beyond our own lives,” he said.
