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WE’RE STILL HERE!!! a quarter of the way, still a long way to go! You can still support us so we can kick off the after-school campaign by the end of March! https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/linga-langa-project-let-s-build-a-school--2

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Meet Deborah Bushiri Linga Langa PR and Social Media Genius Hi everybody, My name is Deborah BUSHIRI. I am a member of the Linga Langa Campaign as part of the Community- PR team, but you know, it is such a small structure that we all wear different hats. I am originally from D.R.C and I live in Belgium. I immigrated into Belgium when I was 8.  I consider myself as being a mixed-culture person. 

Personally, I joined the campaign because of the big picture: Education. I think that education, not just in the formal meaning, but also the informal one, is actually now more than ever the main tool to freedom. I am talking about all types of freedom: spiritual, financial, social etc. Therefore, when I got the opportunity to help children who lack access to this very necessary tool, I just wanted to help on my level of course. This project spoke to my heart. 

The story behind it:  

I met Dong Hee, the founder of Well Done Project during my tour in South East Asia. We were in Ho chi Minh and she told us (Emma and I) about her work and charity organisation. We were fascinated by her lifestyle and her soul. We wanted to help.  It sounds cliché but Dong Hee has a very special light about her. We talked, we laughed and we shared food and drinks. Eventually, we kept contact through social media.  After participating to the Seminar about social entrepreneurship, she contacted us to talk about this beautiful project. Emma and I were so excited, we decided to get on board! We planned a meeting in Paris and discussed for hours about the project. 

What I find so awesome about this project is how people from different backgrounds and cultures can come together, collaborate and manage to get this campaign going. The diversity is just amazing. This is my very first experience in the field. I have a Masters degree in Business Engineering but I am learning everything on the ground and I love it! 

I will finish this by saying, don’t underestimate the power of the crowd and the power of social media in this type of campaign. If you are not financially able to donate, just share, spread the word. 

Thank you to our supporters!

To support our campaign, go to: 

https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/linga-langa-project-let-s-build-a-school--2/x/15839082

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Meet Siviwe Mbinda Founder of Happy Feet Youth Project/ “Core” of Linga Langa Team

Siviwe Mbinda is the founder of Happy Feet Youth Project, a non-profit youth-focused dance project designed to empower young people through dance, comradeship, and strong values. Using the unique "Gumboots Dance" as a means of getting young people interested in the dance troupe, Mr. Mbinda focuses on personal development and shielding youth from influences like drugs, alcohol and violence. In addition to Happy Feet, Mr. Mbinda also co-founded Siviwe Tours, a local tour company that provides Cape Town township tours throughout the Langa Township. As a Langa local, Mr. Mbinda uses his intimate knowledge of Langa's culture to introduce the township to a wider audience. As with his other ventures, Mr. Mbinda uses this company to empower the local community and provide employment opportunities to local residents. Alongside his own professional ventures, Mr. Mbinda has worked jointly on various projects throughout Cape Town intended to empower, protect, and advocate for the local youth community, including Vamos Township Tours. Happy Feet Youth Project is a South African NGO working with children of Langa to keep them off the streets. Founded in 2007 by Siviwe, its goal is to empower the children and teach them confidence. Through traditional gumboots dancing and children-led choreography, they encourage discipline, respect and confidence in children. HFYP seek to improve educational opportunities and to encourage healthy lifestyle for children in Langa. HFYP is offering scholarships to its most promising students and is feeding more than 200 children at least twice a week thanks to its donators. The programme includes children as young as 3-years old to teenagers at 18. Wishing to go further in the education of the children of Langa, Siviwe is now working on launching an after-school programme that would lead to the construction of a school that will provide better conditions and technologies for the children. Having a troubled life himself, he realises the importance of education when he has the chance to go back to college in 2003 and study entrepreneurship. What college teaches him is that he already possesses the resources to change his own reality and through proper training he can develop his own talents. Siviwe Mbinda is a great example to many and he is a true leader at heart who has the ability to lead his society to change. We are now all working on his cause! Everyone can join in with as much as 1 dollar! Read the full story and how to support Langa at: https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/linga-langa-project-let-s-build-a-school--2/x/15839082

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Meet Dong Hee Cho Project Director/ Graphic Designer In the next few posts we’d like to share with you the background to the project and also how each one of our team got involved with Linga Langa. First one on the list is Dong Hee, The Linga Langa Project Director. Dong-hee Cho is the founder of the Well Done Project, an organization which aims to provide clean drinking water to villages in Africa. She founded this project after volunteering in Africa with an NGO in 2009, where she learned firsthand about the pressing nature of clean water in small villages. In order to fund the creation of water pumps in these villages, Ms. Cho used a unique crowd-sourcing technique called Talent Donation, where creative friends donated their unique talents in the form of postcards and prints, and was able to raise the $10,000 necessary to install a water pump in Fungurume, DR Congo. These friends each created limited edition postcards, and later tumblers, that were sold to fund the Well Done Project. Within a single year of selling these limited edition postcards and tumblers, Ms. Cho had successfully raised the money to install her first water pump. After this initial success, she went on to expand the project to install more water pumps with additional help from donors and creators around the world.

In 2013, WDP created a Mathematics book in order to give children a new way of learning and to fix water tanks in two public primary schools in Arusha, Tanzania. The book, named “Well Done Mathematics” was sold in South Korea in Tanzania. In 2014, WDP and Les editions Ganndal in Guinea decided to publish the book in the French speaking countries of Africa. The association and the fundraising of students in South Korea made possible the printing of 5000 copies of the French version of the book, now called “Bien joué les mathématiques”.

Her social work and history of innovative creative work gives her an invitation to attend the Young Cultural Innovators session at Salzburg Global Seminar, Austria in October 2016. There she met Siviwe Mbinda from South Africa. After meeting him an finding out about his story, she decided to start the Linga Langa Project, which is a collaboration between Well Done Project and Happy Feet Youth Project in support of Langa children in Cape Town. The rest of the story can be found on: https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/linga-langa-project-let-s-build-a-school--2/x/15839082 Please donate, share, and spread the word about Linga Langa.

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It all starts with a dance Happy Feet Youth Project aims to preserve the traditional cultural heritage of South Africa. This traditional gumboot dancing, which originates in South Africa holds values that speak millions about the culture and understandings of the natives. In the core of the dance is the use of the human body as the origin of the music, the rhythm and the movement itself. All that you need to start dancing is just turn up and find partners, which teaches a lot about finding your internal strength and rediscovering your personal abilities and talents. What we want to teach through our new educational system is that children can nurture and develop their own talents and skills. Practice and education builds everything else that one needs, but most importantly it reveals the innate capabilities that we all have. For this dance to work, you need a group, a crowd, a community, which starts working as a symphonic orchestra. There is some magic about watching a large group of people’s feet move as one, their hands clapping as one, their bodies dancing to their own rhythm. Being part of such dance, opens up perspectives about equality, sharing and mutual understanding. We believe that everyone deserves to have equal opportunities, that everyone has innate talents that they should be given the opportunity to share with the world. And we like the idea of altering this world by creating more freedom, confidence and self-awareness for the children. This is why the Linga Langa Campaign naturally follows the development of the Happy Feet Youth Project into creating a new school that can teach the children not only dance, but a full curriculum of subjects that can help the children grow into a more open-minded world and will allow them to choose who they want to be and what future they want to build! Help us be the change we want to see in the world: https://www.generosity.com/education-fundraising/linga-langa-project-let-s-build-a-school--2/x/15839082

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The Linga Langa Project - Let’s Build a School Let’s Give Kids Pencils NOT GUNS Going into week two of our fundraising campaign, we’re adding a new line to our slogan to underline the context of the campaign. We’re working towards a better future for the children, and your support can help us build a better world for all of us! As this is what equality means. Follow the campaign link to read Dong Hee’s story of her visit to Langa Township last November. This is the story that got us all on board to move this campaign forward and build a better community. You can help by donating, sharing and spreading the word. Any advice on how we can reach our goal is welcome, and we’d like to hear your feedback! GET INVOLVED! 

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And we’re now live! Help us take the next step of our journey to change! Full story of how we started and campaign video on the link. You can also read about our plan of action and how we’re going to utilise the donated money. Every little helps, so please donate, share and spread the word. Help us be the change we want to see in the world!

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Campaign Explanation

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EDUCATION IS KEY!!! Last week we started the “I<3Education” Campaign, in which we invite everyone who believes in the importance of education to share their views. It’s simple - all you need to do is take a photograph of yourself holding a piece of paper that completes the sentence “Education is key for...”, then share on social media and nominate a minimum of two friends to follow your example. The aim of this campaign is to make us think on the fundamental importance of education for building us as human beings, helping us understand the world and see life, giving us the tools to connect with others and create our own reality. 

The Linga Langa Team could not imagine our lives without education in its numerous shapes and forms and we are strongly convinced that everyone around the world has equal rights to knowledge and all children must be given equal opportunities to grow and develop their talents. To me, personally, education in terms of learning about the world is as important as education in terms of getting to know and understand the innate abilities that we all as humans have on the inside. School is where we all learn how to use our talents, where we get to know creativity and the place where we learn how to collaborate with others, how to express ourselves and how to strive to achieve more. This is my opinion, but as the experience of education holds a different value for everyone around the world, we want to hear from all of you!

Whoever reads this post, we urge you to follow the simple steps and spread awareness about the importance of equal rights to education and education as a tool to social change, which is the essence of The Linga Langa Project.

On other notes, The Linga Langa Fundraising Campaign kicks off tomorrow! Our first step on the journey of building the school is collecting an initial sum of $20,000. From tomorrow everyone can join in with as much as you feel like. In case we don't reach our target, you receive your money back. And when we reach it, we'll be able to take the first steps into building a better future for the children! Link will be launched tomorrow! Yours, Liliya Ys.  Bulgaria + The Linga Langa Team

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Just before New Year’s a solar panel projector donated by the Yurak Middle School students, one of the biggest supporters of Well Done Project from Busan, S.Korea was delivered to Happy Feet Youth Project .The projector was bought with funds raised by the students in 2015. The project is alive since 2015, it all started with sending books, delivering from students with higher income to low-income children. Thanks to the kids, this is now a great Christmas present. Now it can be utilised within the new Langa school, improving the educational resources and helping the children focus on enriching and productive things! Thank you lovely young supporters! We hope Happy Feet Youth enjoy it!

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Christmas with the Happy Feet Children. Siviwe as Santa Claus bringing in presents for the children. A very summery Christmas!

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We’d like to share with you this EuroNews reportage from 2 years ago, which reveals the basis of issues that are still faced in South Africa.

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Our team has already come back from the visit in South Africa, where loads of inspiring footage has been recorded. We’re currently going through it all so we can share the stories of Langa Township people with you! Hojin already created the first cut of the video coming up on Jan 3rd, when our campaign kicks off!

We are now going to be building our social media campaign from over 5 different countries on 3 different continents. Our aim is to spread the work across the globe and get involved as many people as possible so please share! All the main information will be coming over facebook on the Well Done Page and we will continue to share stories through the blog. https://www.facebook.com/WellDoneProject/

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On the Top of The Table Mountain 

Today we’re sharing with you the view from the top of Table Mountain that the team hiked up to. So close to the edge of the world, all you see beyond is the boundless ocean and the infinite sky, the fresh air rushing through your head you can easily forget about the worries of the day, the over-exaggerated stresses of busy rush hour in the city, the constant chasing up of deadlines and the nettling feeling of discontent we’re bound to have in our everyday life. 

Looking at this photo, which Dong Hee shared with me, I was still filled up with thoughts from last weekend when my video production team and I were at a rather exquisite event in London, which was focused around putting more high-class events and conferences and creating the organisers’ and delegates’ experience. Everyone was dressed up so elegantly, well-spoken with a definite idea how to get a message across and also enjoying some excellently presented food. “Top notch”, one would say. To add to this story, which I realise has little to do with the story we are here to tell, to get to the venue in Central London in time, we had to wake up at 4 am, pack up our car with a wide range of fancy filming and lighting gear, and get on the road, recklessly driving along the narrow even roads of the beautiful peaceful countryside of Oxfordshire, occasionally in passing another speedy vehicle, their lights dazzling us. There were a couple of times my heart jumped and turned upside down in my chest on some of the sharp bends on the road, but we eventually got into Central London where the morning traffic was getting heavier and now we started stressing out around fighting up against the minutes to make it on time, nervously exchanging some slightly irritated lines at each other. Why am I taking a lyric moment to share all this? Because this experience I had and I have come across many times before actually tells me so much about the world I’ve been trying to understand by its completely opposite ways.

The story we’re here to share with you, is the story of a life tucked away in the skirts of Table Mountain where you can find a buzzing neighbourhood, buzzing in a way so different to what one might have been used to. Walking along the dirty alleyways between makeshift ship containers turned into homes, the air filled up with the aromas of the home cooking, the goods sold at the market and the pungent smell of fermenting grain, resounded by the cheerful voices of the dwellers in the neighbourhood. If you come from one of these buzzing elegant worlds that London could offer or even the quiet tidy, well-organised, idealistically peaceful worlds of the British countryside where the locals hold a high sense of true aristocracy, discussing how horse rugs are measured or the types of stirrups over blended scotch and refine syrah wine (which world, trust me, I love imagining I can one day belong to), then you might not quite understand Langa. It is possible that coming from this world, one can sense at a glance garnering fear and even pity for the locals dwelling in the shadow of Table Mountain. Thinking about those houses quickly put together in the 1920s for the shipyard workers to protect the bottom line. At the time the first inhabitants of the area were only looked at as labor and when building the houses the only thing that was considered was maximum occupancy and optimising sleeping space. So men had left the rural village life and come here at the docks in search of a paycheck separated from their wives and children. Later on, the family values took prevail and wives relocated to retain the normalcy of their family life. This is how population grew rapidly at the cost of sleeping space and resulted in what we still see these days - 4 families sharing a room and a kitchen. Coming from a place in middle-class England or most of Europe, or even more from some areas in the States, one can see this kind of life as misery, but of course there is a flipside - nowhere else but in a tiny little home like this, one can learn a lot about sharing space and building up a community. And this is something that is apparent in every aspect of daily life which can be experienced during a town stroll or in the rituals the locals have.

Along our journey we will tell you more about these aspects of life in Langa township, the history of the place which is so important for understanding the values of the locals and all that is behind the rebellious spirit that started gangsterism in the neighbourhood, the reasons behind this project and what we are aiming to achieve with it. Along the way, I am learning to get away from the stigmas about the outside world so my perceptions of misery ring hollow and I can see the true value and beauty of this place, being able to see clearer the dreams and aspirations of its children, which are no different to my own, merging with the infinity of the sky and the immensity of the ocean. 

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Weekend celebrations

A bit more from the social life of the area.

The first photo was taken in a place, which is called 'Rands' in Khayelitsha township. Dong Hee and Siviwe went there after they visited Wandasile's 18 Gangster Museum on Saturday (26th of November). Strange as it may sound to other cultures, this is place that is mainly focused around the meat. People come here to eat meat, drink, dance all together, bubbling until the sun goes done. Dong Hee shared with us how she met a musician/magician who sat next to her and spoke: 'Yes we got freedom since the Apartheid and it is such a pleasing thing to achieve but I think we shouldn't celebrate only in this kind of way.' (seeing the people in the place). He was also spoke about the importance of education.

The second one was taken in “Mzoli's”, one of the most famous butcheries in Cape Town. Siviwe took Dong Hee and another girl they met in Salzburg on the first Sunday she came to Cape Town. It is located in Gugulethut township. The experience there was different from the Rands, as Dong Hee describes it: “I could see many different races (although I was probably the only one far-east asian I think...)”. According to Siviwe, meat is only one thing which can unite all the races in South Africa. Not music, not sports... but meat! It seems like people usually go this place on Saturday or Sunday and start dancing from 9 in the morning (yes, It is a place for meat but people dance as if they were at a club, I could compare it with the equivalent of a day festival in the UK). The place has to be closed by sunset though because Gugulethut is one of the most dangerous areas in Cape Town. Quite a unique place to visit where all races can be united.

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Some of the Happy Feet Young Faces :) The girl in red is one of the very first to start dancing with the project in 2007. To find out more about our story, follow us.