Resa O’Reilly travelled to SA to fulfil a dream and while offering her services to a local school, she noted that the poor still had to pay for schooling so she raised some money.
Project Promise, a St. Croix, Virgin Islands based non-profit dedicated to improving the lives of at-risk youth has recently announced their gifting of close to $10,000 to educate 30 children in South Africa for an entire school year.
Last February, the founder of Project Promise, Resa O’Reilly, fulfilled a dream of travelling to South Africa on a service trip to help children in need. According to Ms O’Reilly, a native of St. Croix,
“I fell in love with the country and the children that I worked with. I knew there was more I could do to help.”
During her time at the St. Paul’s school, she discovered that despite living in poverty, students attend a public school they must finance, commute two to three hours each way, and must pay for transportation. The Grade R1 students come from the surrounding townships of Langa, Gugulethu, Khatalitsha, Makaza and Delft.
During her February trip, O’Reilly decided to sponsor two children but upon returning to St. Croix, she along with Project Promise board members, staff and volunteers raised funds to sponsor all the children in the class that she worked with, plus five more.
The Caterpillars, the 12 and 13-year-old participants in Project Promise’s flagship program The Caterpillar Project, raised over $1,000 to pay for the education of three of these students, often collecting donations one dollar at a time.
Ms O’Reilly will be travelling to Cape Town to present a check to the principal of the St. Paul’s Primary School on July 19, 2018. This date is of particular significance as it is the day after International Mandela Day with 2018 also marking the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth, a day where everyone can take action and inspire change in the world.
Project Promise and their efforts to help educate children and uplift them from poverty would make Madiba proud.
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