Thursday 17 July 2008

Playing B.I.N.G.O. with Team Dew Point

Almost two weeks ago the ladies team, Dew Point, held a fundraising BINGO evening. The girls (Lauren, Daleen, Tammy and Kelly) will be racing Bull of Africa next month as an all-girls team. And because they race starts on Saturday, 9 August (Women's Day), they decided to support a related community initiative in the Eastern Cape area.

The team selected the Masimanyane Women's Support Centre to benefit from their fundraising initiatives. The Centre, located in East London, is a non-profit organisation giving support to women and girls. They focuse on awareness programmes, counselling, educating and interventions dealing with domestic violence and sexual abuse mainly of women and girls. They also educate women about their human rights and promote gender equality in the communities. HIV/Aids is also a large focus of their programmes.

As much as society has progressed in the last sixty years - like equal opportunity employment and voting rights for women - some things haven't changed; women and girls are too often subject to abuse (emotional, physical, sexual). This Centre and others like it, play a vital role in educating, protecting and empowering women in these communities.

Dew Point has been publicising and raising funds for this Centre since earlier this year. They also paid the Centre a visit when they went to the Eastern Cape in April to take part in Wartrail.

While supporting a charity through your sporting involvements is nothing new, I admire the amount of work this team has put into their support of the Centre. As many of you know, it takes enough effort just to get yourself prepared for a multiday race but to put additional work into organising a fundraising evening...

Although I work in the non-profit sector I am fairly cynical as I see endless gimme, gimme, gimme emails daily. But, I've also met incredible people with hearts of gold who pour time, energy and money into initiatives that enrich and benefit the lives of others. Team Dew Point and the sponsors and helpers involved in the Bingo evening have generous and kind hearts of gold too.

The good news is that the team has raised almost R13,000 from this Bingo evening for Masimanyane. It was such fantastic fun with delicious dinner. And I just love silly sayings like, "lucky legs eleven" and "two little ducks" (22).

I wish the team further success with this project and also BEST BEST wishes for a successful and rewarding race at Bull next month.

Follow the team's activities online at: www.teamdewpoint.blogspot.com

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