TPA in the News

  Ross off to "The Home of Cricket"
Gold Award Participant from the Eastern Cape goes international
2nd of February, 2010

Ross McCreath, a Gold Award Participant in The President’s Award for Youth Empowerment Programme and Grade 11 student at St Andrews College in Grahamstown, has been invited to speak at Lord’s, “The Home of Cricket.”  Ross is the mastermind behind the township cricket team, the Tiger Titans, in Bathurst in the Eastern Cape, and he has been invited by the International Award Association’s World Fellowship, to share his innovative project at a dinner on the 2 March 2010 to be attended by HRH, Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, the founder of the International Award for Young People. 

Ross became involved in this exciting social innovation project as part of his participation in The President’s Award for Youth Empowerment Programme.  He has achieved the Bronze and Silver Levels of this international youth development programme and is currently actively involved at the Gold Level. 

Ross’s volunteerism has been recognized in a number of ways:

-          MNET’s Carte Blanche did a story which was broadcast in 2008 about the Tiger Titans and Ross’s involvement with setting the team;

-         Ross received second place in the Jack Cheetham Awards in 2008 receiving R50,000 which is administered through the Tiger Titans Sports Trust for the development of the team;

-          His project was one of three South African Award Projects short-listed for the International Award Association’s Peter Cruddas Social Innovation Initiative (PCSII) in 2009 (the results are yet to be announced); the PCSII seeks to profile exciting and innovative service projects by Award Participants around the world;

Ross, with Martin Scholtz, CEO of The President's Award for Youth Empowerment

(Photograph: David McGregor / Daily Dispatch)

Ross, through his continued involvement with the Award Programme at the Gold Level, has extended his project by developing an informal soccer team in the same township near Bathurst.  A great project for 2010!

St Andrews College was the first school in the country to offer the Award programme back in 1983 - then known as The Gold Shield Award.  In 1994, the Award Programme in South Africa became known as The President’s Award for Youth Empowerment, with Mr Nelson Mandela as the Patron-in-Chief of the organisation.

Well done, Ross!