The team of 3 (pictured below) consists of one runner (Moss), one swimmer (Hayward) and one cyclist (Cooper) who will each perform their specialism then hand over their timing chip (‘the baton’) at the end of each leg.

It is going to be a tough challenge but they hope to raise over £500.  Training has been taking place over the last 3 months and the team are confident they will achieve their target.

The money raised is vital for the future of the children and their survival and eg are proud to be sponsoring the team.  It costs approximately £40.00 per child per year to supply daily food supplies of e-pap to keep the children strong and healthy – that’s less than £3.50 per month.  Around £125 can provide one child’s food, clothing and school fees for a year.

Mark Cooper commented “the bike course will benefit from road closures which is a rarity in central London, so hopefully this will give us the best chance possible.  We ask that people give generously for this worthy cause”.

Please help us to hit the target by sponsoring online at www.doornkop.co.uk

The aim of the Doornkop Needy Children Centre (DNCC) is to provide shelter, clothing, education and love to those orphans and destitute children from the age of 0 – 5 years.

The Centre, situated in Snakepark, a poverty-stricken area of Soweto, was started in August 2002 by two concerned mothers who were aware of the fact that many children – some abused, some abandoned, but most just plain poor – desperately needed some sort of crèche facility and care. They approached the community, secured permission to use a church gathering point and now look after 160 children.

For more details on the event visit http://www.thelondontriathlon.co.uk/

Pictured left to right Mark Cooper, Jonathan Hayward & John Moss

Since the start of the year there has been lots of activity in extending the facilities and room at the crèche.  The amount of children requiring care increased dramatically so a new temporary facility was provided.

The crèche has been now been extended so children are cared for according to their age groups, allowing relevant care for each group.  Doornkop carers are also receiving additional training with Greater Soweto to build their skills and provide the necessary care for the children.

But it doesn’t stop there.  Our next challenge is to get planning permission for a completely new permanent crèche building on nearby land.

eg operations management solutions (pty) limited (known as egsa) made a donation of R60,000 from which we will supply the children at the centre with daily supplies of e-pap.

Wendy Jeavons, Managing Director of eg sa said “It was so pleasing to see the progress being made at the crèche during our last visit. The children are healthy, happy and learning new skills everyday. Namsie and the Carers are doing a stunning job and it’s all made possible by the generous donations we keep receiving“.

Thank you to everyone who has helped eg support The Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre over the last year. If you would like more information about the work the Centre undertakes, or would like to make a donation, email ask@eguk.co.uk.

Children at the Centre

eg staff including Elizabeth Gooch, eg’s CEO, visited the Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre last week and purchased items from a ‘wish list’ of educational items using some of the funds raised over the last few months.  Items included baby play toys, puzzles and building blocks for the crèche.

Elizabeth Gooch said “It is so important that we continue our regular fundraising activities for the Centre to expand the facilities they have available and contribute towards the children’s education.  It is clear that their health has improved with the regular food supplied through our sponsorship.  But the real difference we can make will come from educating these children so they can change their own lives when they are older”.

The Doornkop Needy Children Centre provides shelter, clothing, education and love to orphans and destitute children from the age of 0–5 years.  Currently around 160 children are in their care.  eg decided to support Doornkop after being introduced to their work by the CEO of weekly South African newsletter ‘South Africa – The Good News’ and has since pledged to support the charity in their short and long term objectives.

If you would like to find out more about the Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre, click here or email ask@eguk.co.uk.

The Doornkop Needy Children Centre provides shelter, clothing, education and love to orphans and destitute children from the age of 0–5 years.  Currently around 160 children are in their care.  eg decided to support Doornkop after being introduced to their work by the CEO of weekly South African newsletter ‘South Africa – The Good News’ and has since pledged to support the charity in their short and long term objectives.

Each year operational management software applications vendor eg and other supporters of Doornkop host a Christmas party for the children and chose to organise something different from the usual format this year.  For many of the children the trip to the zoo was the first time they had left their hometown of Soweto and seen live animals.

Following a tour around the zoo, the children enjoyed burgers from the braai (or barbeque) provided by ‘South Africa – The Good News’.  The day ended with a performance from the children of ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ followed by a traditional African Dance.

Read more about the Doornkop Christmas party in the ‘South Africa – The Good News’ newsletter.

Wendy Jeavons, Managing Director of eg South Africa, said:  “The children thoroughly enjoyed themselves and it was a fantastic experience for eg staff to see the direct impact of our recent fundraising.  The caregivers felt that it was a great change to previous Christmas parties because it was fun and educational at the same time.”

The funds for the party were raised following fundraising activities with clients and staff.  eg would like to thank everyone who has supported Doornkop over the last year.

Photographs from the event can be viewed here.  If you would like to find out more about the Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre, click here or email ask@eguk.co.uk.

eg organises regular fundraising activities for the Centre, the last of which saw three senior members of the Software team swop their suits for pink tutus in return for sponsorship money – if you haven’t seen the photographs click here. The ‘eg fairies’ raised over £1000.

The delivery to the Centre was greeted with immense excitement, even though most of the items were practical gifts for the Centre rather than items for the children themselves. Gifts included:

• Buckets
• Bowls
• Jugs
• Plastic cups
• Face cloths
• Flip chart paper
• First aid kits
• Wall charts
• Stacking fun sets
• Hoola hoops
• Disney character balls
• A black board
• White chalk
• Beacon fizz pops

Thank you to everyone who has helped eg support The Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre over the last year. If you would like more information about the work the Centre undertakes, or would like to make a donation, email ask@eguk.co.uk.

The spectacle was in aid of eg’s company charity, The Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre in South Africa, chosen after eg opened a subsidiary company in the country in 2007. The aim of the Centre is to provide 160 poor children between the age of 1 to 5 years old with safety, shelter, clothing, education and love. Some of the children have been abandoned or orphaned and live in foster care, and some are HIV positive. They all come from very poor families.

eg’s donations to the centre have helped provide:

• e-pap (a nutritious cereal which swells when added to milk or water to provide a healthy meal)
• Toys
• Learning materials
• Clothes
• A Christmas party

As little as £40 can provide food for one child for a year and around £125 can provide one child’s food, clothing and school fees for a year.

Phil Ezzard, one of eg’s fairies, said: “To begin with this started off as a joke with clients but it soon became clear that they were genuinely keen to humiliate us and it was therefore a great opportunity to have a bit of fun but raise some serious money at the same time! At the moment it looks like we have hit our £1,000 target, an amount that will go a long way in supporting The Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre to continue to make children’s wishes come true.”

If you would like read more about eg’s work with The Doornkop Needy Children’s centre, visit the South Africa pages of the eg website: http://www.eguk.co.uk/eg-south-africa/. To find out more about the centre, including how you can sponsor a child, visit: www.dncc.co.za/.

To see photographs of the eg faires, click here.

Extracts taken from an article which appeared in South Africa – The Good News on 19 December 2008.

It was another typical Johannesburg summer day, with the temperature well into the 30s. The smoking braais reminded one of a hundred summer celebrations, and the shrieks of delight emanating from the jumping castle brought back happy memories as we watched over the running, laughing little bodies.
Under the supervision of the caretakers from Doornkop, and the staff members of crèche sponsors (South Africa – The Good News, DigiPos and eg South Africa), the Doornkop children played on the jumping castle, danced to the music pumping through the speakers and relished the attention of all the adults at their party.

For lunch, 120 children were served braai-cooked hamburgers. With a smile on their dials, and a belly full of burgers, the kids gave the jumping castle another almighty pounding.

In the early afternoon, the children curiously watched a man dressed in oriental clothing prepare a table full of boxes, cloth and rope. After sitting down the children were introduced to Professor Amigo! The magician vanished coins, broke free from chains, turned a giant bottle into a can of coke and abracadabra’d a container of burnt paper into a box full of sweets. The tricks got wilder and wilder as the children called for more, with rounds of applause and shouts of “Amigo, Amigo!”

After the magician had packed up shop and bid farewell, there came another cry of “Yo-ho-ho” from around the corner and in walked Father Christmas with a big bag of gifts. Santa gave the kids a little talk on the benefits of giving, and called them up one by one to receive a T-shirt and a big Christmas cracker.

After they had been dressed in their new clothes, it took some time before the first crackers were popped. The novelty was a new one for many of the children of Doornkop, but once they started popping, there was just no stopping.

As the late afternoon clouds gathered over Soweto, we were given our own gift. The 120 children, aged 3 to 6, all gathered to sing for us a simple yet reflective song:

“Walk up the mountain, take your time, stop to look around.”

The almost impromptu sing-along concert, with accompanied dance, was the precursor to an energetic thank you.

It was then time to go. We said goodbye, as the children boarded their busses to go back to the crèche. With their shoes and socks in hand, little bags on their backs, they all waved goodbye, except for some of the smaller ones who had already fallen asleep in the arms of a caregiver.

Read the article in South Africa – The Good News

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Commenting on the company’s achievement, CEO and founder, Elizabeth Gooch, said: “South Africa is an important market for eg and achieving a level 2 rating in only our second year for our commitment to developing this market is a great achievement.”

As a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, the organisation has a dedicated skills development programme in place for staff, which means that staff benefit from comprehensive training programmes in the core Microsoft technologies that the eg software suite is built on.

As part of the company’s social responsibility initiative it supports the Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre providing e-pap, toys, educational equipment and clothes for the children.

Elizabeth Gooch continues: “We will continue to develop the skills of our people and support the Doornkop Needy Children’s programme to maintain EmpowerDEX level 2 status.”

eg solutions plc boasts more than 50 Blue Chip financial sector companies among its client portfolio, including Co-operative Financial Services, Scottish Equitable plc, Nationwide, Norwich Union and Standard Bank.

Following flotation on AIM in London in June 2005, the company set out to demonstrate the applicability of its solutions in other markets and territories throughout the world.

In 2007 the company released an enhanced version of its proprietary Operations Management Information (MI) software – the eg operational intelligence® suite – which delivers rapid performance improvements in Customer Service Operations allowing for consistency in work, resource and performance management. eg operational intelligence® now supports eg solution’s vision for global/virtual Operations Management and provides the capability to manage operational performance from anywhere in the world.

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egsa, a software business specialising in operations management solutions, expanded into South Africa last year and is based in Johannesburg. The organisation’s head office is in Staffordshire, in the UK. eg has recruited local SA resources to develop its eg operational intelligence® software suite that delivers guaranteed improvements in the back office operations of banks and insurance companies.

The aim of the Doornkop Centre is to provide 160 poor children between the age of 1 to 5 years old with safety and shelter from Monday to Friday and on weekends if necessary. Some of the children have been abandoned or orphaned and live in foster care, and some are HIV positive – they all come from very poor families.

Elizabeth Gooch, CEO of the eg group, explained what inspired the company to make a charitable donation to the Doornkop Centre: “Since we made our initial visits to South Africa my staff and I felt strongly that we would like to look at ways of helping underprivileged children get access to regular food and education and also support those affected by the AIDS virus. We hope this donation signals the beginning of a close relationship with the centre, not just between our South African office and staff, but also with our colleagues in the UK who have already expressed an interest in organising fundraising activities for the centre. Together we hope to educate people about the invaluable work the Doornkop Needy Children’s Centre undertakes.”

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