Tiger Titans Cricket Club founder, Ross McCreath, who once received a standing ovation from Britain’s Prince Philip at Lord’s Cricket Ground, also one of the top five finalists in the 2012 The Herald GM Citizen of the year awards, as well as the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) South African Youth Award winner in the Health & Wellbeing category.
At only 15 years of age Ross realised that there was potential in the rural areas and without any help from government, department of sports and recreation, councils, municipality, unions or Cricket South Africa started a successful cricket club.
Pretoria born McCreath who moved to the Eastern Cape at 7 years old was never necessarily great in any sport, however he cherished the values and discipline he was taught and of course the opportunity to make friends. He took his love for sports a little further and at 15 he decided to start a club for less privileged communities.
The Tiger Titans Cricket Club is a development situated in the heart of the Eastern Cape, Bathurst. It caters for boys of all ages with the youngest member being 6 and the oldest 23. The club is in its 5th year and has grown to over 90 members involved in cricket and offers all members the opportunity to up-skill themselves.
As the second child of 3 siblings, Vonani Mathebula was raised by her mother after her father passed away when she was only 14-years old. Life became even harder after her mother lost her cleaning job, but Vonanai worked hard and made sure she went to tertiary. When she was 20, she co-owned a promotions and a marketing business with her best friend Sylvia called Feminine Touch Promotions and Marketing before finally starting Brains Empowerment in 2011.
Vonani also produces Successful Women Magazine, a bi-monthly informative and inspirational magazine that empowers women through information about education, the corporate environment, entrepreneurship and sports. The aim of the publication is to inspire women to take charge of their lives and strive for success.
Vonani acquired a business loan from the National Youth Development Agency (NYDA) that she invested in the magazine. In addition, she received the NYDA’s Marketing and Promotional Material Voucher and a Website Development Voucher. Vonani’s ultimate goal is to be the voice for people in rural and disadvantaged communities.
For more on these stories, catch the Limitless Youth TV series brought to you by the NYDA. Broadcast on Sundays, on SABC 1 at 13h00 and hosted by popular radio drive time anchor, Rofhiwa Bologo aka TholiB.
The show will run for consecutive 13 weeks and for those who wish to communicate via mail please visit info@nyda.gov.za or they can call the toll free number on 0800 52 52 52. The twitter handle for the NYDA is @NYDARSA and the twitter hashtag for each episode is #LimitlessYouthShow.
About the Limitless Campaign:
The NYDA’s Limitless Youth campaign is an initiative that strives to improve how the NYDA connects with young people, instilling a positive mind set amongst youth of being Limitless. This campaign appeals to young people to keep their dreams alive and not to have a mind-set that relates to ones challenging circumstances, but rather a mind-set that says: “My future is not defined by my current circumstances”.
Most importantly, this initiative has focused on exposing young people to meaningful programmes, products and service offerings of the NYDA which are meant to better their future prospects. The NYDA continuously strives to empower and enrich youth through information sharing on opportunities that are tangible and sustainable in nature.
For media enquiries please contact:
Shoe-Shoe Letele
Jenni Newman Public Relations
Cell: 082 406 1018
Tel: 011 506 7374
Email: shoe-shoel@jnpr.co.za
