Mars Ambassador Program equips Western Cape school
The Mars Africa holding company introduced a Mars Ambassadors Program in 2008 to form part of its global initiative to make a difference in underprivileged communities. For the 2012 programme 10 Mars Africa ambassadors from South Africa, the US, UK, Germany, China and Australia transformed an empty room at the Marconi Beam Primary School into a fully equipped computer centre worth R150 000.
All teachers and learners were taught basic computer skills, given an introduction in how to use the Internet, PC maintenance as well as how to use Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint and Excel).
This follows the successful initiative last year where the programme developed a vegetable garden and presented a one-week workshop to learners on healthy eating and nutrition.
The school library has also been fully equipped with donations of new and used books donated by Mars associates. The ambassadors set out on the task to catalogue and computerise the library to assist in administration purposes.
Apart from the generous donation of school systems, 47 of the students were given new school uniforms sponsored by Woman Leading Powerfully in the US. Shoprite Checkers also donated R8000 in shopping vouchers which will go towards procuring some of the stationery requirements for the pupils for 2013.
"Bringing technology to a school of this nature and seeing the joy of the schoolchildren's faces has been phenomenal! We have trained all teachers and pupils on the basics of IT and have up-skilled the more technology-savvy teachers and the senior pupils to ensure that there is a full support structure for the school," says Nathan Levey, IT account manager at Mars Africa. "Once again our Associates Ambassador Program proved to be a huge success. We were extremely excited to be part of this and to assist in passing on our knowledge to the youth of the school."
