My School Sign-Up

What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.

Ever heard this saying? Whatever the case might be, this is not true for family. Home is a place where we are loved, where we feel safe, be ourselves, grow, eat, drink, play. Families and especially children take ‘home’ with them. How they feel, what they’ve experienced and whether they’ve been loved.

The opposite of this ideal also exists. Many children in South Africa aren’t being loved. Safety is not the norm. Food and drink are not a daily occurrence. Among the worst cases are children sleeping on the street, having to scratch around for a few crumbs to eat or run from danger.

In South Africa every child has the right to a home. One where they are safe and are cared for. This idea has been written into our constitution. At KIN Culture we believe in home and family as some of the most important factors in a child’s life. If we can place children in a home with a family who loves them, where they are fed and nurtured then we have taken a big step towards giving them a great future. In addition to this they will have the opportunity to learn and grow – something which is made possible when they have love and safety at home.

KIN Culture Shop also stocks a wide range of quality, locally made goods. The aim is to provide people with skills and opportunities to craft these beautiful ceramics, linen and canvas products. When you buy one of these products you are contributing towards building a home for vulnerable children in the Western Cape.

Activists often appeal for the contributions of many individuals to make the world a better place. “If everyone gave R 100” or “80% of this and 20% of that” would make the world a better place.

Over the last few weeks KIN Culture ran a My School/My Village ‘sign-up drive’. In the weeks leading up to Mandela Day 2016, we had volunteers at various Woolworths stores around the Cape Peninsula. Our initial goal was to double our sixty-odd contributors. To our surprise we reached this goal after the first few days. As we visited numerous neighbourhoods around the city we were encouraged by the public’s willingness to get involved with KIN Culture in this way; of course, to our amusement there were a few strangers who were “too busy” to even look our way. In the end we signed up well over 800 new contributors to the KIN Culture cause. In short, we now have more than 800 people contributing financially to assist vulnerable children around Cape Town.

Thank you to all who were involved and also to those who signed-up, if you don’t have a card yet email our office – info@kinculture.org

KIN Culture now deals in plastic too; that would be My School plastic. If you don’t know what we’re talking about, then firstly you need to sign up for our newsletter. Secondly, KIN Culture is now a My School beneficiary.

Here’s how it works:

Go to My School by clicking here , fill out the form and write KIN Culture wherever it asks for the beneficiary. (Pssst…you can support up to three beneficiaries you know) And voila! You are now supporting KIN Culture. Thank you very much by the way!

Not much of a ‘fill in an online form’ type of person, send us a message (click here) and we’ll get you going.

You can swipe your My School card at any Woolworths, Engen or Waltons to name a few. (See the full list here) To date we have surpassed the R500 per month, do your thing and get us to R1000 per month mark. That is R1000 a month from your shopping that goes towards creating a home and a bright future for children at risk in South Africa.

Justice and community transformation is something everyone can contribute to.

KIN Culture is big on community; not only the ‘people who stay in the same place’ kind, but a heart connection. We are passionate about connecting people doing their thing with a greater purpose, in our case creating a better future for vulnerable children in South Africa.

In December 2015 a group of friends from Cape Town embarked on an adventure to traverse the kingdom of Lesotho in 7 days; hence the name Kingdom Traverse. In South Africa we have the privilege of parking off at the beach from mid December; not these guys. 16 December saw a group friends head for the mountains of Lesotho to start off with a 35km mountain run, followed by a 1km swim in the Khatse dam and a 45km mountain bike ride. A walk in the park for these mighty warriors on a mission. The rest of the week saw them take on a 32km kayak, some more MTB trails and running, culminating in a last day of run, bike, run to finish off the remaining 50km.

Grobler Basson, organiser of Kingdom Traverse, beams with passion when he starts talking about the outdoors. He approached KIN Culture as a means of getting involved in the lives of children in South Africa; and what an inspiring way to contribute. Team Kingdom Traverse showed their true colours by donating goods to an orphanage in Semonkong. We are inspired by your love for others and living as disciples of Jesus.

KIN Culture would like to thank team Kingdom Traverse for their contribution and hope to see you on the village soon.

KIN Culture is passionate about community and sustainability. We believe that creating futures for ‘children at risk’ in South Africa might be a daunting task at first, but when we all come together and throw our proverbial ‘penny in the pot’ then we might just see a South Africa where children who were once ‘thrown away’, could become contributing citizens.

We are very excited to partner with the My School programme. This means that when you purchase from Woolworths, Toys ‘r Us, Engen or any other participating stores, we will receive a percentage of your purchase.

Oh, so you already support little Suzie’s primary school which she attended in 1989 or you already support another charity? That’s great, we’re really happy that you have contributed to a better South Africa. You can link up to 3 beneficiaries to your card.

Now before this becomes a sales pitch, get down to Woolworths, grab some chocolate mousse, mini-pancakes and a coffee.

Now, anyone who has followed KIN Culture for any amount of time might know that one of our aims are to merge local business with charity. Designing with humanity is part of our DNA.

So we are almost coming up to one year of some really cool and handy products. Our online shop (www.kincultureshop.org) is doing its thing, we’ve been to Kamers Vol Geskenke and now we are trading from the Watershed at V&A Waterfront.

While we are hard at work sourcing foster parents for our first home and others brainstorm about fundraising options, our #productwithacause is sharing the KIN Culture story at the Watershed. We are really excited about the possibilities of having this shop in the Waterfront. Make sure you get in on the action by visiting our store, open daily between 10 am and 7 pm.

KIN Culture is a community focussed on sustainability. One of the endeavours we have embarked on are locally produced homeware products. These products have been available on our online store, www.kinculture.org for almost a year. It was during the course of 2015 that we stumbled on the idea of creating a corporate catalogue.

Last year we had the opportunity of providing a large quantity of small ceramic bowls as corporate gifts to a medical conference held in Cape Town. This was a grand opportunity to display our products with a cause and saw the start of our very own corporate catalogue. This catalogue will have a wide range of locally made corporate gifts suitable for end of year functions, conferences or just to spoil some of your clients.

Keep your eyes open for the launch of this catalogue and share the love as we build a bright future for the children in South Africa.

The next point on the agenda is an exciting partnership developing between KIN Culture and a local business venture. Presently the only information that we can divulge is that this relationship would not only give us the possibility of purchasing a piece of land in the Winelands area, but could also become a very fruitful venture in the future.

Furthermore, we continue to work on various departments in preparation for the village. Our own business, education and social welfare structures are making promising progress. In the coming weeks there are a number of important meetings taking place, ranging from government to environmental sustainability to business opportunities.

KIN Culture is a family of like-minded people with a common goal. Thank you for your support and contributions. If you would like to get on board with this vision, it is best that you do so now by praying with us and considering your own contribution to making South Africa better for our children.

Remember Mandela Day is around the corner, do your 67 minutes this month.

Sustainability is one of the core values of KIN Culture. Many great ideas have faded due to a lack of funding. ‘Profit for Provision’ suggests that profits could be used to build and sustain a community where orphans and vulnerable children are loved and nurtured.

Towards the end of 2014 we played with the idea of having our own cattle to farm with, as we intend to do when we move onto our land. In 2015 one of our team members were in conversation with De Villiers Graaf from De Grendel regarding temporary use of their land for grazing. This was not a request they could assist us with at the time, so they donated 18 cows and one bull to KIN Culture. Our cattle are currently grazing on the land of Christo Briers-Louw. We are really thankful to these two parties who have been generous with their time and resources.

Our bull is a registered Nguni bull and goes by the name of Colesberg. We not only received 18 cows, we received 18 pregnant cows; well almost. Most of them are pregnant with a Nguni/Boran cross-breed and the expected date of arrival is in January.

At the moment we are in consultation with the owner of the land where are cattle are staying in order to optimise KIN Cattle for profit for the village. We are currently looking for investors as we are planning to start our own sheep feedlot.

These are exciting times for KIN Culture, as we have the opportunity of watching many new things take shape. Sign up for our blog updates or follow us on social media to stay on top of the latest events.

Beauty and creativity is part of the KIN Culture DNA. We have always wanted to manufacture something that has a greater purpose. We recently held the launch for our online store. It was a perfect evening, complete with a range of quality designer products, delicious food and great company.

Products with a cause is a dream that grew on us from day one. We all buy clothes and shoes from retailers and large corporates. Every now and then chaos enters our lives when a mid-season sale is announced. The problem is this: more often than not, retailers exploit the poor to produce products which we, the consumers, love to buy. The catch: ‘we’ help the guy at the top to become rich, by taking advantage of those who make the products and will forever be stuck in poverty.

The products in our online store are hand-made South African products. We partner with organisations and companies who aim to uplift and up-skill local communities by providing favourable working environments, opportunities to workers and have a high regard for best-practice principles. The end product is that consumers will now buy products manufactured in a great working environment and where the profits are for the benefit of orphans and vulnerable children.

The launch of our store had creativity written all over it. Daddy.O was a perfect fit for our products. The raw-beauty of the evening was captured by the fresh produce that caught everyone’s eye. Colour coded platters with figs, a variety of tomatoes and tropical fruit were complimented by decadent breads and cheese, with various spreads.

As you walked in the smell of freshly brewed coffee put you at ease. The guys from ‘Fleet Coffee’ were an inspiration to us. These guys train individuals from local communities as baristas and then they use events like these to work their magic.

The night was complete with a great video explaining the concept of our online store and a few stories of our collaborators.

An event like this is successful because of like-minded people who support our cause. Thank you to Daddy.O for a great venue, ‘ButtaNutt‘for donating your delicious nut spreads and Nicolette Kapp Photography. We would also like to thank the following suppliers for their contributions which helped us make this night successful:

– The Skinny Juice Company
– Fleet Coffee
– Schoon De Companje
– Pesto Princess

The next exciting piece to this puzzle is KIN Culture will be having a pop-up shop in the Cape Town CBD during the month of June. We would love to meet you there and have a cup of coffee together. What are you waiting for let the shopping begin www.kincultureshop.org.