What happens at Faure Street Stadium from 16:00 to about 17:30 on Saturday 5 August will give one school the bragging rights over the other for another year.
Paarl is a beautiful town to raise kids… the clean air, river, mountain and beauty everywhere you look around. Home to some of the best wines in the world as well as home to some of the most beautiful women in the world. It lives up to it’s name as a beautiful “pearl” with a world-class university in a neighbouring town, and a platteland feel with everything you can get in a city.
The town is geographically divided into south, north and east. The river was the great divide in the hardest years of apartheid. Apparently there was or is also some status involved, whether one lives above or below the Main Street or in one of the heavily guarded security estates that will eventually probably link Paarl and Franschhoek as towns(?).
As with any community the town has its problems. Poverty, marginalisation, unemployment, homelessness, hunger, gender-based violence, gangsterism, dreaded diseases and broken homes are just a few of these problems. This brings me to the reason for addressing this in writing. I used to be in education myself at a “traditional” boys school.
This school had an outreach programme and interact club that engaged issues relating to problems in the community. One of the Derby day weekends was set aside for a Cancer Awareness Drive, with the host team playing in pink jerseys, the profits and gate takings donated to Cansa.
We have so many elderly in the community who need to feel wanted and loved. So many hungry children, so many children without fathers . . . what a great divide between the “haves” and “have-nots”.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t see a great outreach over the great divide? Maybe the town could also have bragging rights leaving a legacy every year.
If you would like to join me on this Peace Train please do. Meet me in a land of hope and dreams. It will enrich and add to the values and education of the children involved.
When the dust has settled at Faure Street, maybe the influencers and policy makers in Paarl can knock together a plan that will make us all proud. Something that gives us all bragging rights.
Please have a wonderful Interschools, and hopefully the day will be filled with sunshine and happiness.
