CSI

Ready and able

Murray & Roberts puts its weight behind disabled sport

Murray & Roberts has decided to provide funding support for disabled sport from the dividend gains of the Letsema Sizwe Broad-Based Community Trust, a broad-based BEE shareholder in the Group.

The trust owns 2,22% of Murray & Roberts Holdings and its dividend income is invested in the empowerment of Black workers, unemployed people, the aged, people with disabilities and women.

Hilton Langenhoven

In 2008, Murray & Roberts identified triple gold medallist in the Beijing Paralympics, Hilton Langenhoven, as a beneficiary of the trust. Impressed by the ability Hilton has demonstrated to conquer almost insurmountable odds to become a champion athlete, the trust has allocated Hilton R500 000 over five years to allow him to concentrate on preparing for the 2012 Paralympics.

Two disabled sports projects, Boccia for the Severely Disabled and Judo for the Blind and Visually Impaired, were short-listed in the 2008 Murray & Roberts Jack Cheetham Memorial Award in recognition of excellence and community development and were also identified as beneficiaries of the trust. The projects will each receive R150 000 over three years, escalating at CPIX.

Brian Bruce and Andrew Skudder announcing the Murray & Roberts sponsorship of Hilton Langenhoven (centre) at the 2008 Jack Cheetham award ceremony

Boccia for the Severely Disabled

Boccia for the Severely Disabled is a form of indoor bowls played by people with severe disabilities. Ruon van Zyl, a victim of the 1950s polio epidemic, recognised the value of Boccia for disabled children and introduced it to schools for the disabled across South Africa. Today, more than 500 disabled South Africans participate in the Olympic sport and a South African team has achieved strong rankings in international tournaments.

Judo for the Blind and Visually Impaired

In 2006, Mike and Lorraine Job, both 6th degree Judo black belts and instructors with 40 years of service to the sport, introduced Judo to the Athlone School for the Blind in Cape Town. By 2008, the pilot group had doubled to 68 participants, 15 of whom were selected to represent the winning Western Province team at the first National Championships for the SA Sports Association for the Physically Disabled. In another significant achievement in 2008, five Athlone players were selected to represent Western Province in the able-bodied team.

Other beneficiaries of the Letsema Sizwe Broad-Based Community Trust are:

The CIDA Education Group
Disability Empowerment Concerns Trust
Heartbeat Centre for Community Development
Kurisani Investment for LoveLife Youth Development Trust
Outward Bound South Africa
Soul City Broad-Based Empowerment Company & Soul City Institute.

Hilton Langenhoven: paralympic hero, role model to young athletes

Hilton Langenhoven is 25 years old, and lives in the Boland village of Pniel, in the Stellenbosch mountains.

Hilton’s childhood was deprived, and fraught with problems which, to many, would have seemed insurmountable. He was born an albino, with only 20% vision. His father left the family home when Hilton was very young – never to return again, and his mother was left to cope with three young children without any support. At the age of six, he was adopted by his aunt, but soon afterwards her husband died and she was left to take care of Hilton and her two children alone, so she decided to send Hilton to the Athlone School for the Blind in Bellville Cape Town.

“I was small and felt alone in this world after I first had to leave my Mum and then my new family. Because money was scarce, I couldn’t go home in the weekends like everyone else; I felt rejected and was always teased because I looked different with my Jik-white skin and hair. I was very vulnerable to being exploited, to insults and ill treatment and I had to learn to defend myself,” he says.

Hilton became the man he is today – one who can see at three metres what others see at 60 – by becoming sociable and taking part in school concerts, singing in a choir, washing cars to raise the train fare to go home, working in gardens during holidays to buy clothes and by playing soccer and then athletics.

The better he did the harder he practised, and when he excelled at long jump and javelin, he progressed to provincial level. At 17, Hilton was chosen to represent South Africa at the Australian Junior Paralympic Championships. He won six gold medals – in the 100 metres, 200 metres, 400 metres, javelin and long jump, and as the fastest male athlete in all age groups.

A year later he went to France with the senior team and that was the beginning of his phenomenally successful career in athletics. He won gold medals in the SA Championships in 2003 and 2004, a silver medal in the Athens Paralympics in 2004, a silver medal in the Commonwealth games in Melbourne in 2006, four gold medals in the Nedbank Championships for the Physically Disabled in 2007 and a world record in Long Jump during the World Championships in The Netherlands in 2007. In the Beijing Paralympics in 2008, he astounded the world by winning triple gold medals in three different disciplines, one for the Pentathlon (F12), one for the Long jump (F12) and one for the 200m (T13).

Hilton says he is determined to win more races and break more records, nationally and internationally. His life is filled with goals and hard work ahead.

Hilton is assisted by the ECHO-Erinvale Care & Help Organisation, a local non-profit charity, which has supported him since 2001. This is an excerpt from an account of Hilton’s life by Dick Wensing of ECHO.

Hilton achieving his gold medal hat trick in Beijing

Winning at the 2008 Beijing Paralympics

In action at a long jump event in Beijing