N Mellon/A Ruhan19 Mar 2013 07:36
It was against this inner reference that I started working with Lawrence Anthony 7 years ago in developing a new model for communities, conservation and business which differed from anything which both Lawrence I understood to exist. Something we were both passionate about. Lawrence had been very good friends with my brother Miles, and Miles in turn, had been Lawrence’s attorney. Through Lawrence’s son Dylan, I introduced him to an area very near to my family farm where I had grown up, as I wanted to make a difference in my own community. There we a series of farms (19 in total), halfway between Durban and Pietermaritzburg, which had been subjected to a land claim. The community had needed help and we believed we could give it. It also represented a huge opportunity to make a beautiful game reserve, and create a new model for doing so. The exchange was simple. If the community contributed their land to conservation, we would bring education and opportunity to them. This simple exchange was the basis on which the deal was done, and represents the heart of what we are about. Having said that, with Lawrence, nothing was ever normal, or boring.
We realised early that, if we were to succeed, we needed to adopt a different approach. We also needed to work with the best people available. In that respect, we have been extremely fortunate to have attracted the likes of incredible people in their own right, be it Lawrence’s son Dylan, the tireless Yvette Taylor, the indestructible David Bozas, the brilliant Irish businessman and philanthropist, Andy Ruhan, or fellow Irishman and philanthropist extraordinaire, Niall Mellon, all of whom Lawrence can take credit in laying claim to- well, let’s hope if nothing else, that holds true of his son, Dylan.
Today, seven years later, and one year after Lawrence’s death, the Mayibuye Project has grown into a multifaceted project, which, most importantly, works. This ranges from creating a community owned Big 5 game reserve within half an hour of Durban that will ultimately exceed 17000 hectares, to us feeding over 300 children in crèches each day, to our monthly sports tournaments, the building of a luxury housing estate on the reserve in partnership with the community, for people working in the cities but wanting to live in the bush, to the incredible project of Niall and Andy to educate 100 000 children between Mayibuye and Lawrence’s beloved Thula Thula communities and more. This is not to say that we don’t experience the usual challenges and hardships encountered in ones journey through life, it’s just that we don’t accept walking away as an option. We have learnt that we have to find our own solutions.
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