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The ETE Fund is administered by a trust. Trustees are all individuals closely involved with the communities of the Cape Town South Peninsula. The ETE Trustees:
- Herbert Eichel: Fish Hoek Galley Restaurant
- Hans Zwets: Rotary Club of the Cape of Good Hope
- Dianne Robinson: LLB UCT, Director LS
- Alan Ferguson: Private Client Holdings
The ETE Trust is administered by Private Client Holdings on a pro-bono basis.
ETE will profile the progress of each child on an ongoing basis to keep contributors informed about the achievements of the children and to demonstrate that their contributions are helping real children to grow in very real terms.
Fundraising for the E-T-E Fund will be done through this website. We will raise finance from around the world by encouraging businesses to add the E-T-E "Click here to Start a Childs Education" button to their website. Donations can be made live on this site, and contributions are listed in order of size. This will encourage a 'bidding war' whereby businesses contribute more to maintain their position in the contributors' window.
Why not sponsor a child's education?
For a commitment of approximately R65,000 per year for 12 years, you can offer a child access to a quality education that they otherwise could not dream of.
Leave a legacy and be forever remembered for making a difference in the life of an underprivileged child, their community, immediate surrounds and by extension the country at large - it starts with us.
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In July 2009 the Fish Hoek Galley Restaurant on Fish Hoek Beach celebrated its 25th Birthday. Owner Herbie Eichel wanted to do something special to mark the occasion by putting back into the community.
Herbie has always believed that true empowerment comes only through a quality education. In the mid-1990s he conceptualised and continually refined a programme that would holistically assist children in disadvantaged communities to gain a quality education. He called his concept Empowerment Through Education.
As a sponsor of the Rotary Club of the Cape of Good Hope (CGH Rotary) Herbie was honoured with the prestigious Rotarian Paul Harris Fellowship and, one day, was invited by the Club to visit a project they were working on in Masiphumelele, an impoverished community which shares "the valley" with Fish Hoek in Cape Town South Peninsula.
Masakhane Creche is one of 28 creches and pre-schools run and administered by the Valley Development Project (VDP) in Masiphumulele and nearby Ocean View. The VDP had been active in the valley since the late 1980s and the creche project was a key part of their aim to empower the women of the community.
Rotary Club of the Cape of Good Hope, under the guidance of Hans Zwets, Joe Diener and other Rotarians, were building a new, solid, purpose-built brick building to replace the shipping containers that Masakhane had been operating out of since their beginning.
Herbie realised that he had found 'home' for Empowerment Through Education. Working closely with Lynda Lamb who managed all 28 pre-schools for the VDP, Herbie provided books, some office equipment and an initial R25 000 to fund teachers salaries and other expenses at Masakhane, with more funds contributed over the following years. Herbie also appealed to the community through local publications, including Full Circle Magazine, for volunteers to interact with the children and help them learn to speak English so that when they went into Grade 1 they would be not be disadvantaged by language. Maths and music were also introduced and a vegetable garden created to provide affordable quality food.
So successful was the programme that when they did go to primary school the Masakhane children were all top achievers in their new classes.
In 2007 Rotary Club of the Cape of Good Hope began working on another pre-school, this time in Ocean View. Green Curtains comprised a wooden hut and shipping containers and Rotary was constructing a purpose-built school.
Having established a successful prototype in Masakhane, Herbie again decided to step up to the plate and made a contribution to replicate the programme at Green Curtains. Again Full Circle Magazine publicised the efforts, and in an appeal for volunteers received over 400 calls from people in the Cape Town South Peninsula wanting to offer their time and expertise to the children of Green Curtains.
With the celebrations for the Fish Hoek Galley's 25th Birthday, Herbie came up with a plan to put R1000 for each year of the restaurant's business into an Empowerment Through Education fund. He challenged other individuals and businesses, locally and internationally, to match or better his contribution.
This fund would select top students, initially graduates from Masakhane and Green Curtains, to receive funding for their full primary and tertiary education. This would provide the ideal opportunity to continue the valuable work done by the Educare Centres.
Rotary Club of the Cape of Good Hope enthusiastically decided to match Herbie's contribution and throw their weight behind the project. Thus, the three founding contributors of the ETE got together and through many discussions formulated a strategic plan that would see Herbie's vision of Empowerment Through Education realised.
In 2011 the Metropolitan Foundation became involved with ETE providing a significant boost to the capacity of the Trust.
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