For the attention of the Honourable Minister Mr Gayton McKenzie.

Dear Minister,

Sir, I do hope you and your family are all well. Thank you for being so thoroughly dedicated to the task and role you are carrying out as Minister of Sport, Arts and Culture. Anecdotally, across my contacts in sport, art and in particular music - everyone supportive of your difficult task and have so far been incredibly impressed by the new life you have breathed into the department during the short time since you took on the portfolio.

I wanted to reach out to you as an ex-Drakensberg Boy's Choir School scholar. Perhaps you have already had people reach out, but I would be remiss to not personally tell you what the school meant and means to myself and so many others.

As I am sure you are aware, the Drakensberg Boy's Choir School has for 57 years been a beacon of South African excellence in choral and music schooling. Across the globe, it is a respected institution for the kind of scholar the school had delivered, not only into the arts, but also into the sports and business worlds.

Personally, as a young boy brought up in the Southern Suburbs of Johannesburg, where my father had been one of very few white people to grow up in Soweto (as a child of an employee at the old Orlando Power Station), being a boy at the school afforded me opportunities I could never, ever have dreamt of, but also is the catalyst to my own approach to life and my fellow man.

I learnt about cultures across South Africa, stayed in and was hosted by families I would never have had a usual chance to encounter, from Zulu homes in Natal to Afrikaans tannies in "dorpies" to Sotho homes in Welkom. A white, English boy who was born on the cusp of the end of Apartheid, was afforded a chance to really know the real South Africa and its people.

In the boarding house, we shared our space and lives with other boys from the poorest of poor to wealthiest of wealthy - it did not matter, we all learnt the same way, helped each other achieve global-leading high standards and have an enduring brotherhood now, that transcends age, race and timelines.

I need not point out the school has been responsible for producing such alumni as Zwai and Loyiso Bala, Ralf Schmitt (the conductor of Ndlovu Youth Choir), Xola Ntshinga (respected sports journalist) who have been under the tutelage before at the Drakensberg of men such as Maestro Chrisitian Ashley-Botha (recipient of the Baobab Award).

The sad, sad truth Minister, is that the Drakensberg Boy's Choir School, once a bastion of music and in particular the promotion of cross-cultural music excellence in South Africa is merely months away from needing to close-down.
As a registered "NPO", the school's main source of income relies on scholars and being a boarding school, it lost a large majority of their students during the Covid pandemic and simply has not managed to recover.

There are plans and strategies, there are a number of staff who are sacrificing their all for the remaining boys of the school, but they need time.

Minister, I come to you as a proud South African, an ex-Drakensberg Boy's Choir School member, begging for your department to step in with assistance in any form or shape that will help this South African icon not be left to the dusty pile of history.

Regards,
Matthew Wilke