The new operation is a result of MTN Bushfire’s effort to focus its distribution of the proceeds from the festival towards direct and tangible results that benefit the immediate community.
MTN Bushfire’s call to social action and change, 'Bring Your Fire', is at the heart of the festival’s ethos and, to that end, since its inception, MTN Bushfire has partnered with organisations such as Young Heroes to support the work that they do.
Dating back to the first MTN Bushfire 12 years ago, the festival and its partners have sponsored over R1 858 775 to the organisation, enabling Young Heroes to provide food and clothing to over 1 000 orphans.
At the launch of the new project, the MTN Bushfire team handed over a cheque valued at R158 775.
Every MTN Bushfire festival ticket sold (R15) goes directly towards Young Heroes. Additionally, the MTN Bushfire festival supports year-round fundraising efforts in an aim to ensure the sustainability of the organisation.
Young Heroes, a non-profit organisation that supports orphaned families from eSwatini, provides relief services to the orphans through cash transfers (Life Support Grants) and has since expanded to the NGO’s vocational skills training empowerment programme, healthcare, HIV prevention and projects sustaining OVC at Neighborhood Care Points (NCP).
The newly launched project will contribute towards ensuring members of the immediate community benefit from the Young Heroes projects, including Life-Support Grants, Healthcare, Skills Training Empowerment Program (STEP,) HIV Prevention for Adolescents and Young Women, Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD,) Income Generating Activities for OVC caregivers, Mobile Clinic.
Young Heroes began as a response to the number of children who were orphans from HIV/AIDS in eSwatini. It was established by eSwatini's National Emergency Response Council on HIV/AIDS (NERCHA) and was launched in 2006.
MTN Bushfire festival director Jiggs Thorne says, "When we started Bushfire 13 years ago, we asked ourselves how the festival could play a meaningful role in society."
Thorne adds, "In our minds, Bushfire could be more than entertainment. It was about exploring the potential for arts to become a tool for positive social change. We are all tremendously excited about the potential that this annual sponsorship supports in terms of offering our children financial, medical, educational and psychological support they too often go without."
Every year, over 26 000 attendees from 60 different countries go to the Malkerns Valley of eSwatini for an event that aims to celebrate the music and arts of Africa and beyond.
Winner of the African Responsible Tourism Awards' Best Sustainable Event Award in 2017, MTN Bushfire was also hailed in 2016 by CNN as one of the '7 African music festivals you really have to see' and listed by BBC as a 'Top African festival'.
For more information, visit www.youngheroes.org.sz or www.bush-fire.com.