Stanley House Gives SSE Kitchen A Make-Over

The school of excellence has been lucky enough to get a kitchen-makeover in April. Stanley House from Wellington College in the UK raised funds of R15000 to be used to renovate the kitchen at our School of Excellence. The United Through Sport South Africa kitchen is currently used to feed more than 150 children per day who participate in the sports program coordinated by United Through Sport South Africa at Ithembelihle High School in New Brighton.

Last year the boys from the same house helped raise money for the gym container at the school, they renovated it and added gym equipment during their trip to provide what is known as the Philani gym meaning ‘Place of Health’ in Xhosa.  The gym is used on a daily basis by all of our sports teams and has helped them incredibly in developing physically to allow them to compete at the highest school level..

This year, 15 Stanley House pupils travelled the 9000 miles to United Through Sport South Africa to help with the new project under the support and guidance of Mr. Neill Lunnon, the housemaster for Stanley House and Tom Norton, the Assistant Housemaster.. The boys naturally wanted to get their hands dirty and together with 15 United Through Sport South Africa boys (buddies), they got stuck in to renovating  kitchen facility that was in desperate need of an upgrade.

The week started off with the Stanley boys buddying up in pairs with the United Through Sport South Africa boys and going through the usual Umzi team building and ‘ice-breaker’ tasks and exercises ensuring that strong bonds were formed from the outset.  From here the boys got straight into the task at hand working with their buddies, some boys cleaned the kitchen, some removed old or broken equipment, some painted the walls and doors and some mopped the floors.

The rest of the week continued in the same vein with the 30 boys (and the Stanley teachers) working hard and playing hard together.  Some of the highlights of the week included trips to the beach and ten-pin bowling together.  By the end of the week the task at hand had been completed to the usual Stanley – UTS-SA high standards and a small handover and opening ceremony took place at the school.

The week was a huge success, with all boys participating in full and providing United Through Sport South Africa with a great new kitchen to provide the daily meals with, but far more importantly and apparently were the amazing friendships that had been created and the life-long learning experience that had taken place amongst both sets of boys.

“During this week we have made new best friends from another country, and the thing that we didn’t realize before is that our new friends are not that much different from us, we both like girls, we like sport, we like being silly and having fun and most of all we enjoyed doing it together.  We will miss them!” - Aviwe Rongqo – Grade 12, United Through Sport South Africa School of Excellence.