Rotary Club Delivers “Study Buddy” Desks to South Africa Students
Two members of the Litchfield Rotary Club traveled to South Africa back in September. Mark Nicholson, Dr. Mike Solbrack and their wives and Nicholson’s son, along with about 30 other Rotary members from the U.S., delivered “study buddy” desks to students.
Nicholson says the desks are manufactured right in South Africa and they were originally called Tutu desks – after Bishop Desmond Tutu who was a champion in the fight against apartheid. He says it’s estimated that there are 95-million students in South Africa who don’t have desks.
Nicholson says they delivered the desks to three different schools. He says he had heard about the trip from Howard Tours of California – the same company that did a trip that he took to India – and Dr. Mike Solbrack also expressed interest in traveling to South Africa.
Dr. Solbrack says the desks cost $20 each and the Litchfield Rotary club purchased 25 of them for the students in South Africa. He says the students were very excited to get their desks.
Dr. Solbrack says they were in South Africa for 12 days and also got to go on a safari, traveled to the Cape of Good Hope – the southernmost point on the continent of Africa, and they also saw Robben Island where Nelson Mandela had been imprisoned. He says it was early spring when they were there in September – as the seasons are opposite from ours – and they only needed a typhoid shot, but if it had been the rainy season, they would’ve needed protection from malaria.
