Dear SAPA-members
As you know we are partners with Symphonia. I received the request below from Dr Louise van Rhyn. If you know of any 'elders' (people in this category who spring to mind is Dr Gibbon, Meryl Hewitt-Fourie, Alan Clarke, etc.), could you please pass this invitation on to them and send Cris their names and contact details so that we can follow up with them.
Kind regards 
Alta

Mobilising our "Elders" to help address the Education Crisis in South Africa.

We are sending this message to a handful of "movers and shakers" as we need your help to craft a mobilisation and engagement strategy for the elders in our society (ie those in the "Silent" & "Baby Boomers" generations). We also need your assistance to figure out who the other ‘movers & shakers' are as we think you may know some people J.

Many of us have been in conversations about how we can tap into the skills, knowledge and talents of the large group of people who are no longer in full time employment but who have so much to contribute to this challenge.

We are committed to Quality Education for All in South Africa by 2020. In order to achieve this goal we need "all hands on deck" and we envision that our elders will play a crucial role in achieving this goal.

The purpose of this message is to invite you to one of two "Strategy Crafting" conversations in December. The purpose of these conversations will be to craft a mobilisation and engagement strategy for "Elders for Quality Education for South Africa".

We are hoping to have +/- 30 "movers and shakers" at each of these conversations so that we have the best shot at crafting a powerful mobilisation and engagement strategy.

We hope that we will soon see 1000s of elders involved with:

-          Early Childhood Development;

-          After-school activities for our children;

-          Literacy and numeracy programmes for young learners;

-          Supporting leadership teams and school governing bodies at our schools;

-          Supporting and coaching teachers;

-          etc

We need your support to mobilise this group of people who have so much to offer to all of us.

Please let Melissa (schoolsadmin@symphonia.net) know if you are able to join us in December to help craft the strategy.

We would also appreciate it if you would be willing to forward this message to others who need to be at these conversations.

We look forward to seeing you in December.

Warm regards

Lynda Smith (Refirement Network) and Louise van Rhyn (Symphonia for South Africa)