My Granny and Grandpa live in South Africa. Our whole family was going to have a huge family gathering in Sedgefield this last Easter, flying in from England, New Zealand and Durban, South Africa. We love Sedgefield because there is so much to do like swimming, fishing, canoeing, bike riding and even paragliding if our Mums let us! It's a really small safe town. My Grandpa has just turned 80 so we had all sorts of fun things planned. We cannot visit because of the outbreak of COVID-19. Now my Granny has been telling me about all the people at the markets and in town businesses who have no income from tourism because everything is shut down without warning. So I want to help them.

Sedgefield is a small town in the Southern Cape in South Africa. It has a population of around 10,000 people. It is sited on a tidal estuary that feeds into the Indian Ocean and while there are no hotels its' main economic activity is tourism because of it's great natural beauty, its beaches and adventure tourism. Sedgefield has three nationally famous markets which operate every Saturday and are a magnet for tourists and the locals. People from surrounding towns head there for meetings and coffee with friends. The many stalls provide opportunities for small businesses too thrive. There are no large shopping malls and the town centre has one supermarket and a number of small businesses. The COVID-19 lockdown has hit the town hard and the knock on effects could be devastating to this closeknit community which even now has plunged its efforts into feeding the poorest section of the community, most of whom live in the lowest socio-economic area called Smutsville. It is estimated that half of the businesses will not surive without funding.

My Granny and I (with help from my dad) are setting up a fund to help.This fund is being set up to support those small and micro businesses in Sedgefield who will fail because their income has stopped without warning. It is intended to provide them with the resources to start again. It will be administered independently with a board of trustees to decide how the money is spent. Oversight of the fund will be handled by Johan van der Westhuizen, MD of Personal Trust (Knysna), who is well known and respected locally, from a ringfenced account.

To help raise money I am running 5km every day until the lockdown changes. I have done 3 days as of 21st of April. I will post progress updates here.

Before COVID-19

NOW