Schoolboys teach us a lesson: Give back

Our “traditional” boys’ schools are sometimes accused of raising tough, uncaring young men more committed to sport and the school blazer than the people in the community.

Yet, King Edward VII School (KES) in Houghton in Joburg must be doing something right in instilling caring in their young men – and specifically those in the 1st rugby XV – a sense of putting back and helping others less fortunate than themselves.

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The players have chosen, in this final – and hugely busy and important – year of their school lives, to volunteer to work in a vegetable garden to improve the lives of those in the Johannesburg Children’s Home.

KES 1st team rugby coach Marco Engelbrecht and his assistant, Sheldon de Robillard, are coordinating the project… but the idea came from the boys themselves.

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Engelbrecht says: “The idea is to pay back. They are privileged, and know it, and the drive is to pay back something to the needy. “

That is a particularly apt summation of what is going on. At a time when “privilege” has become almost a word of denial, this project shows that many of us, of all walks of life, are privileged. And we are morally obliged to give something back.