Write Our Future update

For those of you who may not be following the blog for our social impact venture Write Our Future, I wanted to repost the news from WOF's most recent update. You can find WOF at www.writeourfuture.org and subscribe to our posts, and we are also on Facebook.

Hello 2012!

It is no understatement to say that 2011 was a tremendously successful inaugural year for Write Our Future. Our deepest thanks go to our many donors who helped us to raise the funds to feed more than 106 children at the No-ofisi Primary School and Jujurha Education Centre in the Eastern Cape.

In November 2011, WOF team members Brendan and Rebecca took a trip to the Eastern Cape to meet with the Bulungula Incubator (BI) staff and visit the school feeding program. It was incredibly special to see the faces of these happy, nourished children and our meetings with BI planted the seed for our 2012 initiative.

Jujurha Education Centre

To see more pictures from our visit to the Eastern Cape, visit our Facebook page by clicking here. While you're there, become a fan of WOF so you can stay up to date on our latest news.

The 2011 year-end report has been sent to our donors. If you would like to receive a copy please email writeourfuture@gmail.com. We would be happy to send one to you!

Lastly, we'd like to introduce you to Asali Zintoyinto.

The Bulungula Incubator has created a scholarship program that will be supporting seven children from the Jujurha Education Centre from 1st grade through the completion of 12th grade. WOF has committed to raising the funds to see one of these scholars, Asali, through graduation. Full details will follow in a separate blog post. In the meantime, if you would like to donate to Asali's scholarship fund:

1. Visit the Bulungula Incubator's donation page here, and select that you would like to support education/ the scholarship fund. Donations can be made with any major credit card.
2. Email WOF at writeourfuture@gmail.com to let us know your donation amount for our records.

That's it! Two easy steps to help send Asali on her way.

With all that we accomplished together in 2011, who knows what we can achieve in 2012!

lately

We've had lots on the go lately. Last week was Valentine's Day and as per our tradition we had a fabulous meal at home, this time with our friends Annabelle and Dave. We dined on a feta and peppadew spread with veggies and mini pitas, a lemon, thyme & mascarpone risotto with walnut crusted chicken, and braided lemon bread for dessert. Yum all around.



We attended a protest in front of Parliament. School students and education activists were petitioning for increased financial support for schools in the Eastern Cape (like No-ofisi, the school that Write Our Future is assisting).


Our wonderful friend Atheen is here for a visit and work collaboration with Brendan. Last week we all had our debut visit to the Eastern Food Bazaar and loved it. It is basically an alleyway of cheap and great quality Indian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern foods. We are all very keen to get back there and try some more goodies.


And- perhaps the most exciting thing of all- we saw U2 last Friday night at the Cape Town stadium. It was the most amazing spectacle I have ever witnessed. The stage was trippy, political messages abounded, there was a great video clip from Desmond Tutu, and we sang our hearts out for two full hours. It was one heck of a cultural experience. I'll post a couple video clips from the show later in the week.





Oh, and pie. There has been lots of pie lately, like this peach and whiskey pie with a gluten free crust.

Good times.

Friday movies

*sorry for the glitch with the movies- should be all better now!*

It has been a great week! Write Our Future is off the ground and doing well. As of last night we have raised funds to feed 12 schoolchildren for the year, and we trust that that this achievement will only multiply further. Thanks to everyone for their support. To keep up with our progress, go to our website (www.writeourfuture.org). From there you can click to follow us on Facebook and receive email updates- two more great ways to stay connected!

Since it is Friday and since we are off to the movies tonight, I wanted to share a couple of home videos with you. The first is from my family's visit to Cape Town. On New Years Eve we had dinner at an awesome restaurant at Spier wine estate called Moyo. We sat in a treetop table and enjoyed all the fun entertainment...some of us more than others as evidenced by this video.

The other is of our super nephew James having a bit of fun by the pool with Brendan. This might just have to make another appearance with the little fella turns 21!

We are off to see Black Swan tonight. There is a significant delay in the release of movies here as compared to the US, so I hope we can at least get most of the top contenders in before the Oscars roll around. We saw Winter's Bone (good, albeit depressing) on Tuesday, and are off to see The King's Speech next Friday. Do you have any favorite Oscar contenders?

Write Our Future

Brendan and I are very excited to announce the launch of our social impact organization: Write Our Future. It is an organization currently working to support existing programs that provide educational opportunities to under-served children.

Our first outreach initiative is to support the Bulungula Incubator's school feeding program. This rural school feeds 600 children per day, but is in trouble now that the local government has suspended all funding in support of school feeding. Our goal is to raise the $8500 needed to feed 100 children for a year.

To learn more about Write Our Future and the Bulungula school feeding program, visit our website at: www.writeourfuture.org. Donations to support a child can be made directly on our website. To help us achieve this goal, please share the word with friends and family.