1/5 Photo: Ed Rakhorst/Facebook.
What brings an entrepreneur from Sint-Oedenrode to the townships of South Africa? Where there is great poverty, where children hang out on the street in an environment that is often not safe? Where child abuse and abuse are the order of the day? During his first trip to the country, Ed Rakhorst thought: these little ones deserve a chance for a future. “And then it penetrated me. Shit, I have to do something with this. That’s how the seed is planted.”
As a maker of the TV series, Martijn travels far to South Africa. He visits Ed in the town of Phalaborwa, which borders on the famous Kruger National Park, where you can spot the Big Five (buffalo, lion, leopard, rhino and elephant). His father accompanies him this time, so cozy. Because it is a considerable distance that needs to be bridged, 13,012 kilometers to be precise. To get there, after the flight with a rental car, they tour the Panorama Route, with such impressive vistas that you spontaneously go oh’en and ahen.
Martijn meets Ed in a cemetery, where hundreds of children are buried. It is here where he received his inspiration to work for the youngest generation.
“It feels a bit unheimic To be here again, “says Ed. In October 2006 he was there for the first time. The excavators regularly come here to make the graves for the coming weeks, he was told.” If you see this, so many children’s graves together, then you think, this is not allowed. Children do not deserve to get to the end of their lives in such a way. “
Ed had a successful advertising agency and an internet company. “As a family we did nice and beautiful things, and then we convert them into materialistic goals. But when I came here, that matter suddenly gone. Because here it’s about life and death.” He continues: “No matter how reprehensible, rapes are reasonably standard here. It is part of it. But it is something that should not belong. Certainly not when it comes to very small children.”
The entrepreneur decided to focus on improving education in South Africa. Together with his brother -in -law, he takes over several schools and starts Bambanani Foundationwho is committed to a better future for the youngest generation. This way the children get from the townships Access to a safe environment, education and healthy food.
In 2014 he sold his companies to plunge himself full -time to Bambanani. And Ed knows how to tackle. “It got a bit out of hand,” he laughs. “We now have 106 schools, where five thousand students go every day. There are also two disabled centers. And then we organize various football competitions, so that 3900 children can kick a ball.”
When he visits one of the schools, Ed Groots Bananas hits a local market. “A hundred bananas, one for every child, and the seller immediately doubled his salary of the day,” he laughs.
There are about thirty little ones from 0 to 4 years on the school. “Some children do not wear shoes or have white spots on the head, which means that they are not wormed and suffer from worms,” says Ed. “We are here in the initial phase, the building is in poor condition. A lot still needs to be done. But we have placed a fence around the school for safety and there is now a water tank. We also offer a food program so that the children get eating healthy.”
Malnutrition is the main cause for high child mortality in the country. “In the first thousand days of a child’s life, the foundation is laid for the development of the body and the capacity of the brain. So a child who is malnourished never becomes as smart as it could have been,” says Ed.
The translation into a sustainable, self -reliant school, which runs with a government subsidy, takes approximately six years. “It is important that they continue to develop themselves,” says Ed. “We give the tools, but it is important that they eventually manage the school themselves.”
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