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Vuk’uzenzele Primary School, situated next to Impala Platinum No. 9 shaft hostel in Freedom Park Rustenburg, was officially opened on 10 June 2008.

Impala Platinum and the North West Department of Education made available the sum of R10 million for the construction of Vuk’uzenzele Primary School. The Mining Charter requires companies to co-operate with local municipalities in the implementation of their Integrated Development Plans (IDPs). Vuk’uzenzele is a classical example of an IDP-approved project. In this joint initiative, contributions by Impala were matched on a rand-for-rand basis by the North West Department of Education Bojanala Regional Office and were endorsed by the Rustenburg Local Municipality.

Building of the school commenced in January 2007 and was completed in March 2008, in time for the pupils to move in before the cold winter weather. The new facilities boast a double-storey building with 24 classrooms, a school hall, a computer room, a library, an administration block and ablution facilities.

Read, Swatman & Voigt (Pty) Limited (RSV) contributed by providing an engineer to assist with the project’s compliance with quality and safety standards during the planning and construction phases of the school building.

The refurbished primary school accommodates approximately 1 000 learners and 21 educators. All the learners are drawn from the impoverished informal settlement, Freedom Park. The construction phase provided employment opportunities for 80 people, 34 of whom live in Freedom Park.

Additionally, Impala also added the computer and media centres as well as furniture for the administrative offices to the amount of R650 000. Sports fields are currently laid out.

Shadwick Bessit, Impala’s Executive Director: Rustenburg Operations, said: “It is important that we do not lose sight of our responsibilities to the communities in which we operate. As most of our operations are here in Rustenburg, it was fitting for Impala to build and improve the quality of education for our neighbours, Freedom Park community. We hope that Vuk’uzenzele Primary School will provide a steady source of technically astute learners in the future. We also hope that the community will protect their school from vandalism.”

Principal Andrew Sekopane said: “The prefabricated buildings, which were too cold in winter and extremely hot in summer, are a thing of the past. Credit must go to the staff who continued with their duties with passion under extremely difficult conditions. Also, the learners continued to come to school despite the situation and it makes me proud to see the hunger they have for education.

Impala is also planning to embark on educational programmes at the school in collaboration with the North West Department of Education.

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