For the third year running, a delegation from Guernsey headed to Cape Town in early September to promote Guernsey as a leading international finance centre and raise funds for sport for a very special charity.
CoolPlay uses sport as the foundation through which to deliver valuable life skills based on a specially crafted Social and Emotional Learning Curriculum, developed by child psychologist, Linda Bruce.
Each week of every school term, there are 254 CoolPlay sessions taking place, split between after school sport-specific sessions and in-school sessions during life orientation classes.
For the past three years, Guernsey Finance has sponsored an annual gala dinner to raise funds for the charity, with more and more Guernsey firms getting involved each year.
This year, the gala raised R322 000, pushing the total amount raised over the last three annual events over R1 million.
Several Guernsey firms sponsored the event, with both South Africa and Guernsey based representatives in attendance. The funds raised at the gala will fund 215 children through the CoolPlay programme in 2025.
A buzz of enthusiasm and support was felt in the room for this wonderful sports charity. It was great to be involved in making a real difference and helping children in South Africa not just to have a structured environment to be coached and play sport after school, but the opportunity to learn life skills and teamwork.
With more than 2,200 children engaging with CoolPlay’s champions on sports fields and courts weekly, the charity aims to build socially conscious and resilient children who will have a positive impact on South Africa.
James Crawford, International Business Director for Guernsey Finance, and I represented Guernsey Finance at the event.
James described the atmosphere as ‘electric’.
He said: “It was well attended with some great items up for sale including mini sports balls and tickets for Oasis at Wembley Stadium. Guernsey Finance gets involved in the gala dinner each year to do our part as a good global citizen.”
Our relationship with South Africa continues to develop, with opportunities for South African institutions to use Guernsey to house branches of their businesses with products or solutions that may include life insurance, investment platforms, fund management companies, banking licenses, pension solutions and their own funds and trust companies.
Given Guernsey’s 20-year history of setting up banks for South African institutions in the island, the further development of South African life companies is the logical next step to ensure that we house all financial services pillars for South African firms to be able to carry out comprehensive private client international business.
James recently spoke at the International Investing Symposium in Cape Town, highlighting Guernsey’s transparency, substance commitments, and its robust but flexible and pragmatic regulator. We will also be attending the STEP Cape Town event as well as making trips into Kenya and West Africa as we expand our relationship into the wider continent
Guernsey’s inward investments into South Africa through our fund structures as well as our collaboration with CoolPlay enables us to play a part in ensuring Africa continues to grow and prosper.
