The Greatest Show

It was a wonderful privilege to open the doors of Ellerman House to our friends and supporters of the 11th ArtAngels event: a celebration of South African art, food and wine. This year’s event raised a staggering R2.7 million that will be used directly to address the literacy crisis and support the arts in South Africa.

Once  again, we have been overwhelmed by the generosity of spirit that surrounds this initiative – from the artists who so graciously donated their magnificent works to assist us in raising funds, to our suppliers and sponsors who gave of their time and services to support this event and to our  many guests who continue to support ArtAngels and the work of the Click Foundation.

Our gratitude cannot be adequately expressed here.

Addressing the literacy crisis

The Click Foundation’s focus is to help address the challenge of 78% of grade 4 learners not being able to read for meaning in any language. Given that language skills are a strong predictor of future academic success, educational attainment and most importantly employment and income, the Click Foundation is focussing on addressing the South African literacy crisis through the implementation of a multi-year online English literacy programme in under-privileged primary schools. Their literacy initiative has gained momentum and is reaching almost 55,000 learners in 133 centres across 3 provinces. With strong demonstrable results, they aim to scale this to 1 million learners by 2022.

Supporting the arts

In addition to the Click Foundation, ArtAngels launched The Artists’ Fund at last year’s event. The Fund seeks, under the initial guidance of the Everard Read Gallery and in collaboration with other stakeholders, to give back to the arts and help fill the void created by the post-Apartheid collapse of community arts centres like CAP and Katlehong Art Centre. The Fund receives 10% of the ArtAngels proceeds and this year once again supported The Greatmore Street Studios and Thupelo Workshops, whose partner initiatives are widely acknowledged for their immense contribution to growing South African artists in an inclusive and interactive environment.

We thank you for joining us in giving back to the South African community.

To learn more about how you can get involved in the Click Foundation, click here.