Pride 'n Purpose - giving the gift of hearing
- By Richard Branson -
- Dec 13, 2011
This visit to South Africa has been one of the most rewarding experiences of our lives.
After the Screw Business As Usual launch we travelled out into the bush for the opening of the new Pride 'n Purpose Akani crèche. Christian Slater had flown down and generously helped to open yet another school for the community. Tremendous enthusiasm from everyone there, with lots of dancing and singing. We put our handprints on the walls – not to mention on our shirts and each other's faces too! – and the place was filled with laughter.
We then went out into the community and visited the Bhubezi Community Healthcare Centre, a Virgin Unite Pride n’ Purpose project that we built primarily to look after people with Aids, HIV, malaria, TB and other serious diseases and illnesses.
For the weekend we brought over a wonderful organisation called The Starkey Hearing Foundation. Prior to their arrival we’d gone out to find 500 people in the community who couldn’t hear anymore or were incredibly hard of hearing. 497 of those 500 people went away at the end of the weekend with hearing aids. It really was one of the most rewarding weekends of my life. Seeing kids who had never been able to hear or speak doing so for the first time. Old men completely deaf dancing with joy at suddenly being able to hear again. Incredible.
The Starkey Hearing Foundation is a superb example of a business doing good, travelling the world trying to help people who can’t hear do so again. At one point, Christian Slater, myself and others in a bus all just screamed for joy in unison. One of the best experiences of our lives. The Starkey Hearing Foundation are going to come back again to another clinic in March and help another 500 people.
We had an incredible group of entrepreneurs with us from the UK, Australia, the US and elsewhere - they immediately pledged to help fund another school. Two even agreed to give up what they were doing to come and work for Virgin Unite full-time for no pay for a year. Everybody had a really fun time, as well as making a massive difference during the three days in South Africa.
By Richard Branson. Founder of Virgin Group
