Lindsay Wright packed up her life and moved to Napier to provide an arts programme for at-risk youth; she has self-funded it for years with great success.
Napier, South Africa (05 March 2020) – Lindsay Wright has created an after-school programme for at-risk youth in Bredasdorp and Napier. The area is riddled with poverty, drug addiction and alcoholism but the programme has been a great success and utterly self-funded by Lindsay.
Lindsay retired, so her income possibilities are non-existent, so she has turned to crowdfunding to try and raise funds for the arts programme. Daughter Gemma shared her story with us in the hopes of finding sponsors and funding to keep the arts programme running.
“To cut a long story short, my mother – Lindsay – moved to Napier in a couple of years ago to retire.
Being a single parent to three children, she became aware of the lack of support, development and nurturing of the underprivileged youth in Bredasdorp and Napier. Most of the families struggle with poverty, drug addiction and alcoholism. The kids go to school – often left to their own devices while the parents work to make ends meet. There were no after school activities leaving these kids vulnerable to gangs, drugs etc.
My mom started the Napier Amateur Dramatic Society four years ago in her spare time in the attempt of providing these kids with something creative and meaningful to do after school and to get them off of the streets.
Four years down the line, the ‘school’ has put on numerous annual concerts – involving the entire community including adults, she’s provided after school and school holiday programs and she’s nurturing these kids’ entrepreneurial skills.
Most of all, she has provided hope for the community. The kids are all super talented – singing, dancing and acting – and she has sparked a passion in each and every one of them.
Initially, she put her own time, energy and resources into the programs – self-funding the productions with costs that ran into the 20 000s. She has received massive support from the community via small donations of money, supplies, food to feed the kids during the programs and time – the adults of the community have selflessly gotten involved too.
However, she cannot proceed with these programs without proper funding. She’s become the ‘mother hen’ to these kids who absolutely adore her and the parents of the community are utterly grateful for what she has done for their children.” – Gemma Wright
Lindsay launched her crowdfund via BackaBuddy and hopes to raise enough to cover them for a while. The programme has grown into something that uplifts the entire community.
“We inspire kids who are not exposed to culture by teaching drama, dance, and art at our holiday clubs which keep them entertained and off the streets and then place them in a position to participate in an annual pantomime. They also learn entrepreneurial skills by making their own products with the skills they acquire and selling them at our kids’ market.
The older teens run the kitchen at the holiday club for pocket money. We encourage community clean up days in exchange for sweets, which teaches them to take pride in their community. Grade 7 is exposed to career choices for high school. We engage with our community by placing them in local businesses during school holidays to job shadow.
So far this has all been funded for the past 4 years by myself along with a few community donations. We can no longer sustain this programme without help, as it has grown too big. We now use our costumes from our past pantomimes to run a costume hire business in the Overberg which brings in a small number of funds.” – Lindsay Wright
You can support the arts programme here.