Bosjes funds state-of-the-art school - Botha's Halte Primary School launched

Doing trips into the countryside are imperative to have your finger on the pulse. 
I have been doing plenty of road-tripping this year - way beyond the Stellenbosch mountains. On a trip through the Breedekloof and Worcester area, I took a chance drive up to the very avant-garde destination of Bosjes to have a first-hand look, I came across this brand new primary school being built.  Not just new, but funky architecture, top class and quality materials, beautiful aesthetics and great attention to detail. 

This was in fact months ago, and I was lucky enough to be invited to the official launch of the Botha's Halte Primary School on Friday 20th Sept.  The school has been open now for a few months and the children have settled in well into their very modern surrounds.

The school is the brainchild of the Bosjes Trust as well as a single anonymous donor.  With much collaboration between the Bosjes Trust, the Department of Education in the Western Cape (WCED), Stellenbosch University's SUNCEP program and the Governing Body of the school, they have successfully created a space which is not just for the benefit of the learners of Botha's Halte Primary, but for the greater community, as they have formed an e-learning hub which schools in the vicinity can also connect to, learning more about Maths, Afrikaans, and in future Science and English.

One of the Bosjes Trustees, Leonard Stemmet, introduced us to the school. He has been an educator throughout his life, and also been a principal, so it made sense for him to be the trust's custodian of the ambitious project.

We were treated to the children singing and dancing for us - with a great rendition of Shololoza - giving the Ndlovu Youth Choir a run for their money!  The dancing group recently won golds at their Eisteddfod exams so they were really pleased.

One of the projects at the school is a vegetable garden, which already was showing plenty of green produce ready for picking. The idea is that these veggies are then used at the school and will also be supplying the kitchens at Bosjes.  The children have been very involved in the plantings and tending, so we hope this continues and produces some green fingers in the school  Hats off to Pieter Strauss from Root 2 Grow who was instrumental in getting it to this point.

There is plenty going on at Bosjes with a new Deli and Wine Shop being built, so it would be great to have the veggies at a market or similar - to raise the profile and give the children an entrepreneuneral opportunity to market their produce.

The school has its own solar and wind energy, so virtually off the grid.

The school's motto is Enter to Learn, and Leave to Serve, which we learnt from the school's principal Mr Pedro. I was also very moved by the Chairman's speech. He is Andries Jonker, a farm worker at a nearby farm, and his address was so passionate about how his dream would want to be to give back into a project like this.

How proud to be a South African it made me