Butterfly Foundation teams up with Miss Vaal
VEREENIGING. - The Vaal Triangle boasts many community leaders who work hard towards assisting and empowering locals in need. Ané Oosthuysen (Miss Vaal 2019) and Anzél de Beer, a student in Community Development and volunteer involved in Public Benefit Organisations (PBOs), are two such leaders who prove that by working together you can achieve so much more.
These young ladies have been friends since childhood and still share similar dreams for a better future for communities in need. They matriculated at Hoërskool Overvaal in 2015, where Anzél was head girl and Ané deputy head girl.
After matric, Anzél – who describes herself as a person with a passion for people, adventure and the Lord – went on a gap year and travelled extensively through Africa with a team of like-minded youngsters.
Throughout that year she was immersed in and experienced situations of extreme poverty, the aftermath of genocide, gender-based violence, inequality, forced religion and even the ripple effects of the Syrian refugee crisis. “This is where my eyes where opened to the desperate need for holistic, ‘by the people, for the people’ community development. When I returned to South Africa I became all the more aware that, unfortunately, as a nation we face many of the same problems,” says Anzél. Apart from pursuing a degree in Community Development at Unisa, Anzél is also involved with non-profit organisations such as Global Challenge and The Butterfly Foundation.
The Butterfly Foundation is a registered PBO based in Pretoria with the vision to positively impact and transform South African societies. As a result, the foundation supports and enables projects and initiatives across the nation and has even spread its wings across the border to countries like Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya.
“An essential part of the foundation’s DNA is relationships and the value thereof. That is why I knew The Butterfly Foundation should get involved when I saw Ané’s Facebook post for possible donations towards Catherine Robson Children’s Home as part of her Miss Vaal campaign.
“As an organisation, Catherine Robson is very dear to our hearts. Our relationship with the home started in 2018 when we, through a connection
with Rev Henk Gous, donated 76 desperately needed new matrasses toward the home. “We additionally sponsored pillows and matrass protectors,” says Anzél.
“When I saw part of Ané’s campaign involved Catherine Robson, I contacted her to get together and discuss what we could do to respectively turn
our plans into reality.
“Thanks to the generosity of contributors, The Butterfly Foundation could enable Ané to sponsor the Home with 30 new comforters and pillow covers for their girls’ section. This donation was matched by The Butterfly Foundation’s most recent sponsorship of 30 new beds, also to benefit the girls’ section. Our joint initiative will be finished off with new curtains to match the bedding in the girls’ room.”
Catherine Robson Children’s Home has become very dear to both the Butterfly Foundation’s and Ané’s hearts, and there is much left to be done.
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted,” is Anzél and Ané’s conviction.
