Tourism Community Development Trust - South Africa

Dear Friends of the TCD Trust

You are invited !

With your help we have begun building phase1 of the Blomvlei Multipurpose Center -
The Library and Educational Garden.

Please join us to celebrate the beginning of construction of the Blomvlei Library and
Educational Garden in Hanover Park on Monday the 22 February.

“Schools must become centers of community life”

Date : 22 February 2010
Place : Blomvlei Primary School, Hanover Park.
Time : 14:00hrs – 15:00hrs

Dress code – closed shoes

Here are some photo’s taken this morning to show how wonderful
and exciting the progress is at Blomvlei Primary School in Hanover Park.
The very first foundations of construction of the library.

Construction has only just begun and already a meeting was held today to
start implementing at the school the first social upliftment programme.

The sessions focus on the 4 pillars of a healthy home foundation :

“Children LEARN what they LIVE ! “

1. Proud – 2 – B – Me Youth Programme which focuses on
The child’s role & responsibility as a positive youth, self esteem,
communication skills and my value and character.

2. Proud 2 Parent – same focus as above but working with the
parents in the community.

3. Proud to Learn – same course but done with all the teachers
at Blomvlei Primary School.

We have only dug one foundation and we can already see the change
starting to happen for this school and community.

Help us to complete this dream and start making a change for the community of Hanover Park – become a Friend of the Trust TODAY !

Logon to our website www.tcdtrust.org.za or contact Bronwen on 079 899 2294

Dear Friends of the TCD Trust,

2009 has been a fantastic year for the TCD Trust. We have made tremendous progress on the BLOMVLEI PROJECT, with construction set to begin in early 2010 !

We would like to thank all friends for their valued support and commitment through the years. We could not realise any of our dreams without you. Congratulations!

We are very excited as we begin building Phase 1 of Blomvlei project in January 2010. This will be the community library and educational garden. The center will provide a place of safety, inspiration and education to the community

The design of the buildings is to include as many cost effective sustainable construction methods and materials as possible. The design will enable the facilities to maintain heat in the winter without costly heating and be cool in the summer months without air conditioning. Rain water storage tanks will also be installed to catch water run off from the roof and gutters

The building contractor will also be recruiting people from the local community who have building skills to help with the construction of the center.

We have sourced various companies and NGO who will also be supplying the school with trees, an educational garden, vegetable garden and a recycling depot.

“Schools must become centers of community life”

Programs which we will work with local NGO’s to implement at the Library will include:

• Literacy development
• Thinking skills
• Business Life Skills
• Career Guidance and exposure to career opportunities.

We have also incorporated into the project plans to help the school generate funds and to incorporate the local community :

• Employment of local community with building skills during the building.
• Recycling depot on the school premises
• Food Tents – vegetable tents for growing produce to use and sell.

To date we have raised over R2 million Rand for phase 1 and even though our budget is still short of the total building costs we have decided to go ahead in good faith and start the building process. We will continue to fund raise during construction and hopefully come up with the shortfall in our budget. We appeal to everyone in the tourism industry to support this project and help us to raise the funds required to complete it.Your donation towards this project could help us to start to make a difference to the community of Hanover Park.

We seek donations of any size, private or corporate, for the balance of our funding for phase 1, the Library and educational garden, of this project.

“Creating a variety of secure, sheltered, meaningful and inspirational spaces.”

What is our call to action for 2010 ?

1. SECURE SUFFICIENT FUNDS TO MAKE THE DREAM COME TRUE.

2. ENCOURAGE ALL MEMBERS OF THE TOURISM INDUSTRY TO JOIN AS FRIENDS OF THE TRUST AND SUPPORT THE GOOD WORK WE DO.

3. GET THE COMMUNITY, PARENTS AND CHILDREN INVOLVED.

On behalf of myself and the trustees (Enver, Di, Lisa and Andre) we wish you all a happy festive season and all the best for the year ahead.

2010 promises to be a big year for the TCD Trust and South Africa!

All the best,

Bronwen Wetton
Trust Manager

Networking at Rondevlei Nature Reserve Nov 11, 2009
by Coleen van Staden – Cape Town Tourism

Cape Town Tourism Team South, together with a number of Cape Town Tourism members, had a fun-filled, jam-packed networking function on Wednesday, November 11 at Rondevlei Nature Reserve, just 15 minutes’ drive from the city centre.

The setting was ideal and although the weather threatened to derail our plans, we were able to go ahead with our activities.

Joy Bennett of Imvubu Nature Tours was a gracious host and she, together with the Cape Town Tourism staff, had put together an informative, interactive self-guided 45-minute walk. Most of the function’s attendees had never been to Rondevlei before and were delighted by what they found.Rondevlei is managed by the City of Cape Town and has a dedicated team of staff and interns who manage the area sensitively and responsibly. The area is home to eight hippos, some unique vegetation and roughly 230 bird species.

Our intrepid walkers were encouraged to look, listen, smell and touch – all under the watchful eye of Joy. We challenged the members to return with some hippo dung, which we got in abundance – with some droppings of the Cape clawless otter sneaked in among the lot! It made for a most fascinating dung lecture.

Then it was on to more serious stuff: we looked at a case study of a local fishing community in India that showed just how damaging irresponsible tourism development can be. This particular community, once a happy, self- sustainable community, where rice and fishing were the main industries, ended up a sex tourism destination in a relatively short time.Because the initial development lacked vision, was not subjected to environmental impact assessments and was bogged down in corruption and greed, the community did not benefit at all from tourism but was instead plunged into abject poverty, with mothers and daughters eventually resorting to prostitution to sustain their families.

We also looked at sex tourism and child prostitution in South Africa and Cape Town, and examined how the tourism industry could be involved in various ways to assist and support lobby groups, and international and local organisations.

TheCode.org is an international code for the global tourism industry that encourages tourism businesses, organisations and governments to inform and educate residents and visitors. Molo Songololo is a Cape Town-based non-governmental organisation that works in the field of protection of children’s rights and the Tourism Community Development Trust (TCD Trust) is supported by our local tourism industry through the Friends of the TCD Trust programme. The Trust has done some amazing projects in various communities around Cape Town.

We were privileged to have the Trust’s Bronwen Wetton talk about its latest project in Hanover Park, where a local school has been earmarked for the development of a multi-purpose educational and recreational centre – keeping children off the streets after school and thus reducing the lure of gangsterism and drugs. The project is huge and members were encouraged to support it, either through donations or in kind.
One of our tour operator members, Arlene Hermanus of Shiya Afrika Tours, sprang into action immediately and is offering her services as a storyteller for the soon-to-be built library!

Finally, furthering the theme of safety and security, new Cape Town Tourism member Guest Alert presented its product to us. The product aims to protect the industry against unscrupulous visitors by creating a database of reported bilkers, thieves, scam artists etc. This will be a very useful tool, with real-time reports available to subscribers to the service.

We then got down to some serious eats and drinks, and some productive networking – in true Cape Town fashion!