We strongly urge that the MEED review and rescind its decision to no longer allocate classes on Saturdays from 8:30am-1pm to our music project, Ronnie Samaai Music Education Project (RSMEP), which has been operating at the MEED building in Nooiensfontein Road for the past 20 years.

At the end of 2016 we were notified that the building will not be available for our music project anymore. Reasons: upgrading and will be opening up the building to NGO’s. The RSMEP is a registered NPO serving the greater community of Kuils River as well as Khayelitsha & Nyanga.

MEED building is the ideal venue for music education, our children need to have a place where they are safe, can learn and experience the art of classical music & music theory.

The University Of Stellenbosch has partnered with our project and 10 of our 12 teachers are from the University, volunteering their time every Saturday.

“Playing for A Future” project from Oslo, Norway, has also partnered with us and every year for the past 7yrs, 2-3 of our students were invited (all expenses paid) to partake in the Valdres Sommersymfoni in Oslo. On previous occasions we received donations of instruments from them. On 28 Nov 2016 the project leader of “Playing for a Future”, Prof Alf Richard Kraggerud, came to our year- end concert and sponsored one of our students with free singing opera lessons and gave a monetary donation for the teachers.

The HCI foundation is another one of our partners, sponsoring the cost of a bus service from Golden Arrow Foundation to transport our children from Khayetlitsha & Nyanga to Kuilsriver every Saturday.

Our project has a proven success rate and all this will be lost because we do not have a venue, and because of this poor decision, our children will be robbed of a potentially great future.

We, the undersigned, are concerned parents who urge the leaders of MEED to act now:

1) We want MEED to make their venue available

2) We need this venue as we serve the community

3) It’s a safe place for our children and encourage classical music & music theory

4) Our children will lose the opportunity to exchange with other cultures and overseas travels.

5) We will lose our partners who has so diligently sponsored us for many years.

Every signature will be greatly appreciated.