South Africa Here We Come! Build Blitz - North Kent College with Mellon Educate - My journey to South Africa begins in 3 days!!

My name is Rhiannon Hughes, Deputy Principal of North Kent College. I am shortly travelling over to South Africa for such a worthy cause with 3 lucky students and one of our carpentry lecturers. I shall be working with Mellon Educate and 250 volunteers to build and repair schools in just one week . See below some of the history of this fabulous charity and how we are about to help them in their wonderful endeavours. Follow me on my journey out in South Africa, watch the schools being built and repaired, see the children we will be helping and so much more.... 

North Kent College Construction students are a step closer to flying out to South Africa next month, having been offered the chance to help build and repair schools in a week courtesy of UK charity Mellon Educate and funded by local business entrepreneur Mark Lindop. 

Inspired by Nelson Mandela, Niall Mellon created the charity Mellon Educate in 2002 to help change lives and bring education to impoverished communities in South Africa. This year’s school build will take place in November and see 250 volunteers build and repair several schools in just a week.

The winning students, Cameron Martin, Kavan Swain and Nancy Ford will be expanding their knowledge base by working across multiple trades and witnessing first-hand the logistics involved in running a large scale initiative on tight deadlines. The students will work on anything from cement, plastering, paving to painting. They will work on three schools building multiple classrooms, playgrounds, kitchens, science labs and more. Joining them in this exceptional project will be Deputy Principal Rhiannon Hughes and Carpentry Lecturer Andrew Martin. 

Cameron Martin, commented “ I am honoured to be offered the opportunity to go and I am so grateful to Mellon Educate and North Kent College for making this happen. I am ecstatic to know I will be making a change to people’s lives long term.”

Mark Andrews, Vice Principal Gravesend Campus said “This is a truly inspiring opportunity for our students to gain both life and work experience, whilst helping create a school and a better future for youngsters in South Africa. We’re extremely grateful to Mellon Educate and especially to Mark Lindop for providing the funding for our 3 students, who probably would not be able to afford to volunteer for this life-changing trip.”
Should you wish to donate to this very worthy cause, all details are available on the North Kent College website.

If you would like to donate to support this amazing project, then please visit one of the Just Giving pages that our staff and students have set up below. Money given goes straight to Mellon Educate.

We are also looking for any support in the form of note books, pencils, crayons, etc that can be donated to the school projects whilst out there. If you would like to donate any materials then please contact derekrutherford@northkent.ac.uk.