An Email from Our Founder,
Dear Infinite Family,
My original August update email was intended to be a celebration of Infinite Family’s partnerships: the NGOs and schools that work beside us, day in and day out, in deeply challenged communities; the corporates and foundations that sponsor our work; the new partnerships we’re building right now; and exciting news of a career day just hosted by Seacom for all of our Johannesburg Net Buddies… and another in the works for October in Johannesburg and Cape Town hosted by Microsoft.
Sadly, an unexpected break-in at our Khayelitsha LaunchPad forces another subject to the forefront. What a gut punch our team felt last week on learning that dozens of hardworking teens have been robbed of the invaluable access that our Infinite Family makes possible, to technology, the internet and – worst of all – to their life-changing Video Mentors.
Before I share additional details, I want to assure everyone that the robbery took place at night and no one was hurt. I also want to apologize to every donor who supports our teens with the tools, resources and skills development they so badly need. This will cause disruption to our Video Mentors and Net Buddies in the weeks ahead but we will be back on track as soon as we can.
To answer your inevitable questions:
Yes. The thief/ves avoided 24/7 security guards and dog.
Yes. They slipped by a blind spot in the camera system.
Yes. The police have been notified and have visited the site to take notes.
No. This doesn’t happen very often.
We’re all reeling, as you might expect though, interestingly, this is just the second time in almost 20 years that Infinite Family has suffered a mass loss of our equipment. Technology theft is a common occurrence in Khayelitsha but we’ve been told that it is the power and depth of our relationships with our NGO and school partners, and our hiring and training of community members to run the programme, that usually keep our LaunchPads insulated.
Last time, Bank of America generously came to the rescue with a donation of 90 refurbished laptops. Some of which we’re still using today! Now we have to look forward again, and quickly figure out how ensure our Net Buddies stay up to speed in school, can study in a safe space, and keep connected with their Video Mentors. We also need to support our teens in Grades 11 and 12 as they prepare for their upcoming end-of-year exams and scholarship applications.
In South Africa, new laptops with the specs we need (see below) currently cost approximately R9,000/$545 and we need 19 of them, which means we’re looking for a total of R171,000/ $9,950.
- If you can help sponsor a laptop, here is the link Keep Teens Safe and Studying
- If you know of a company that is retiring gently used laptops, and they can deliver them to Cape Town, please contact me directly via one of the channels at the end of the email.
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Infinite Family Laptop Specifications Operating System: Windows 11 Processor chip or CPU: Celeron N4020 or Intel Core i3, i5, i7 or AMD equivalent Memory: 4 Gig RAM (8GB preferred) Hard drive size: minimum 250GB (512GB preferred) Hard drive format: SSD |
I know – as I’m sure you do too – that our teens are worth everything we invest in them and am hopeful that, once again, our Infinite Family will be a source of good fortune to make sure our teens have the resources they need to succeed in school, work, and life.
With humility, hope, and gratitude for our Infinite Family,
Amy
Email amy.stokes@infinitefamily.org
USA US +1 212 400 7446 x11
SA +27 011 560 7997 x11