Cause Index

Project Colour

Project Colour is an Adventurous Journey created by a group of matric students from St John’s College, Bishop Bavin School, Beaulieu College and St Benedict’s College. Project Colour is a 3500km trip across South Africa in Tuk Tuks, to raise money for an HIV/AIDS hospice in Boksburg Johannesburg. We will, in the short space of two weeks, drive one of the most unsuitable vehicles (the humble Tuk Tuk) 3500km across our beautiful country, whilst raising funds to help the St Francis Care Centre.

The St Francis Care Centre, an HIV/AIDS home, situated in Boksburg, Johannesburg. The Centre was built by Fr Stan Brennan several decades ago, and it now comprises of: The Hospice – a 48 bed facility for adults; The Rainbow Cottage – that provides a home for 30 neglected and orphaned children; and the Centre’s home-based care, which provides care for individuals with life threatening and life limiting illnesses. The Centre is a true place of miracles.

Upon approaching the Chairman of the Care Centre (Mr Alberto Fogolin), he told me that he had (personally) just published a book about an Irish Franciscan Friar, Father Stan Brennan; who’s humanitarian stride and, “resistance to the might of the South African Apartheid machine brought comfort and opportunity that would otherwise have been little more than another distressing statistic in the countries roll of dishonor.” (David Gemmell, Colour Blind Faith, The Brennan Trust, 2013). The book beautifully narrates his struggle to help the less fortunate and at the same time fighting against the Apartheid Era. And so it was decided that we would use the our adventure as a mechanism to raise funds for The St Francis Care Centre and publicize the book Colour Blind Faith – and so Project Colour was born.

The logistics of such a trip are tricky, as we are a team of 7 and need 3 Tuk Tuks; and as it is common knowledge that a Tuk Tuk (a glorified lawnmower) is not the ideal vehicle to trek through an entire country in – we came to the conclusion that we would need a support vehicle. We have since assembled a support team of two South African individuals who are well equipped to serve as our support team.

We would like to, as we travel through rural areas, give out educational materials surrounding HIV/AIDS, its causes, treatment and prevention - to help those in the wider South African Community get help, so that they can have opportunities in their lives. We would also like to stay with the locals wherever we go – to truly experience our country and our people.

To raise funds, we intend to use a similar model to some teams who have used adventurous journeys to raise money in the past. This model relies on media coverage on the campaign. This can be done by using our main demographic (teenagers), we plan to reach them through social media, YouTube videos and Ad Campaigns, Radio and TV – we have made good progress in this regard as we have many contacts and interviews with large media lined up. We will then use the acquired audience to attracted donations using a very successful model devised by Prizeo.com. We have also employed the services of Mr Mike Zidel, a professional filmmaker who has worked with the likes of Steven Spielberg. We have used Mike’s services to film a cheeky introductory video of the boys who are taking on this challenge.

It is our hope that Project Colour could become an annual event, where anyone can join, create a team and travel our beautiful country, all for charity. This will serve to provide a sustainable annual income for the St Francis Care Centre; whilst we hope that we can expand the number of charities we help in time.

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