Lauren: The beauty of starting small

Name: Lauren Rowe
Joined enke family: 2011
Hometown: Krugersdorp, Gauteng

You don’t have to be wealthy to challenge the current status quo or injustice in the world. Nor do you have to be of certain age or have a certain level of education. Commitment, passion and the belief that you can make a difference is what important. These are the beliefs and rules Lauren Rowe lives by.

After being at enke: Forum in 2011 Lauren had one goal in mind, to bring about positive change in her community through netball but she wasn’t sure how. It wasn’t until the annual High School netball tournament at Krugersdorp High where she saw her fellow competitors playing without shoes/takkies that she saw the need. This event marked the birth of her community action project (CAP), “Share a Pair”.

Through Share a Pair, Lauren’s goal was simple; to donate more than 200 takkies to those schools whose players didn’t have any. However, she soon found that things were not as simple as she initially thought and she found she couldn’t do it on her own.  Lauren feels the enke: Forum tries to  encourage young people to move out of their comfort zone and to take a leap of faith; to do the things you’re not used to. For Lauren, doing everything by herself was her comfort zone.

For her CAP to succeed she had to tap into her networks and ask for assistance with marketing, and logistics from her teachers and church members. This experience allowed her to gain the self-confidence she feels she needed to complete her CAP. She believes that had she not asked for assistance when she did, her CAP would have not been possible. Through her CAP she was able to get more than 100 takkies donated by more than 27 schools involved in the tournament. Two years later the Share a Pair programme has become an annual event during the netball tournament.

From her experience she feels that most young people are too eager and want to do too much too soon – then when it doesn’t work out they give up. The second year B.A student at the University of Pretoria and an enke: Igniter at enke, believes one should “dream big but do little by little until it’s complete”.

We want to reach 1000 more young people like Lauren by the end of 2015.  You can help us support more projects like this by contributing to our crowdfunding campaign here: http://igg.me/at/enkeMYM/x/828715