Care centre gets big help

THE good folk of Zululand are experts at combining fun and fellowship with the serious business of aiding the community, and Friday night’s Leisure Gardens fund-raiser was no exception.

June Tennent and her team of organisers, with loads of help from the Empangeni Rotary Club, dished up a thought-provoking, entertaining and highly successful evening at the Umfolozi Casino Resort’ Dome.

Guest speaker, eco-adventurer Patricia Glyn, kept the large audience enthralled with the presentation on her close relationship with the downtrodden Bushmen of the Kalahari, and her attempts to gain their historic plight the recognition it deserves.

Her talk honed in on the pathetic human rights injustices dealt against the Bushmen, including how they were robbed of their land and their dignity, as well as their pious environmental respect for the desert.

Delivered with humour and pathos, Glyn’s dialogue contrasted the great amounts spent on rhino preservation with the disdainful support given to the long-suffering Bushmen – who were at one stage in history even included as fair game on a hunting catalogue!

With Leisure Gardens’ aim of raising enough money to begin building a much needed care centre, highlight of the night was the handover of a magnificent R30 000 cheque from Empangeni Rotary.

And as if this was not enough, to delight the Leisure Gardens committee, a further R20 000 was pledged from the Heatonville Tennis Club membership.

Added to that were a number of auctions and a raffle, bringing the total for the night to a whopping R93 000.