Western Cape School needs your help to MAKE MOVES

Normally, most news reports which come out of the Western Cape harp on endlessly about the poverty, violence, gangsterism, drug abuse, unemployment and general despair which plagues the Coloured community there. Every once in a while though, something happens that can in an instant, restore your faith in the future and give you a ray of hope. A reminder to not be so hasty in writing off our youth as some kind of lost generation destined for tough lives of poverty and hopelessness. A stark reminder that there really is an enormous untapped well of potential residing in our youth and we all just need to join hands to try to bring it to the surface.

Uitkyk Primary School in Lutzville, Western Cape is an otherwise unremarkable school that has managed to achieve the extraordinary. Under the guidance and leadership of a dedicated teacher (Brent Cupido) who introduced the ancient game of chess to the school recently, guts, sheer determination and undeniable latent talent has seen this primary school rise above their circumstances and WIN the national schools chess championships!

Now, I don’t know about you, but this is an AMAZING achievement in my books, when some rural bruin laaities, against the odds, come out on top. Since winning the national schools chess championships in South Africa (that’s right, they whipped every school in the country…RESPECT!), the school’s chess team has since been invited to play at the World Schools Chess Championships in Greece from 25 April – 6 May 2007. The school chess team has also been invited to another World Chess Championship in the Czech Republic from 10 – 20 July 2007. The only problem, is that the school is based in a particularly deprived and disadvantaged community and although the community has rallied behind the chess team to try and raise the funds necessary in order for them to make this once in a lifetime trip a reality, it’s doubtful that they’ll be able to pull it off on their own. That’s where you and I come in!

We at Bruinou.com are so inspired by this story that we have decided to support this school’s chess team in whatever way possible. We’ve always lived by that old saying, “put your money where your mouth is” and this situation is no different (if only our wallets matched the size of our big mouths). Did you know that this newsletter goes out to over 9600 email addresses? We’d like to plead to our subscriber base to PLEASE help us shed some light into the lives of the Uitkyk Primary chess team by helping make their dream trip a reality. Let us not dash their dreams and hopes by denying them this once in a lifetime opportunity. You can make a donation to this noble, worthwhile cause by depositing whatever you can afford into the bank account of Bruinou.com (details below – we will make sure the school gets every last cent):

Account Name: Mixed Planet
Bank: FNB
Account number: 62126091975
Branch code: 261550
Reference: Chess Champs

Names and amounts of all people that make a donation will be published on Bruinou.com for added transparency.

Further, to show how serious we are about helping this team, Bruinou.com undertakes to donate a significant portion of the revenue we generate at our event @ Monaco on 26 January to this noble cause (which means you gotta be there to help us make it a success). In addition, we undertake to donate R100 to this cause from any business that registers on the BruinPages business directory between now and the end of March. What’s BruinPages? Click the BruinPages link in the main menu on the Bruinou.com website. If your business is not listed, it sure as hell should be!

Come on now, let’s make this trip happen for these kids. We’ve started the ball rolling and now, it’s your move.