NATIONAL NEWS - Jono Kruger ran the equivalent of 27 marathons in 25 days to bring social, economic and spatial inequality into the spotlight.
His near-superhuman effort from Cape Town through the Garden Route and to his hometown of East London was just shy of 1 200km – and he will do it again in a heartbeat.
Kruger was in George, Knysna and Plettenberg Bay from 10-12 November.
The “Vula Mdantsane Run for Sports Education and Youth Empowerment” was backed by SPAR South Africa and saw him visiting various retail outlets along the way.
At each of these stores he asked the owner or manager to read one of the 300 letters he had received from Mdantsane schoolchildren. At the end of his endeavour these were handed over to Buffalo City mayor Princess Faku.
Kruger is the founder of EduSport and co-founder of Sport for Lives, two organisations that are having a profound impact on the lives of young people in the EL township.
The former is known for its ground-breaking Coach-in-a-Box initiative, which sees unemployed youth taught rugby and netball coaching skills before being deployed at schools where they, in turn, mentor children for a stipend.
Each box contains equipment relevant to the two sporting codes as well as literacy and numeracy learning materials.
It runs in conjunction with Empowerment Box, the brainchild of another organisation that uses qualified but jobless social workers to offer psycho-social support to these children and coaches.
Sport for Lives, meanwhile, is a fundraising organisation where athletes are turned into activists by connecting sport with the greater social good.
Also remarkable about Kruger’s running effort is that he pulled a Coach-in-a-Box sample in a small cart the entire way.
He began his epic at KWIKSPAR on Kloof in the Mother City’s CBD on 1 November and completed it at the East London City Hall on 25 November. Each day started at 02:00.
Photos: Supplied
His support crew comprised the driver of a customised school bus donated by Selborne College and a videographer who captured and uploaded footage of his run to YouTube and other social platforms.
The bus was something special, according to Kruger. All its seats had been removed to create sleeping room for the trio and an air fryer, fridge and Wi-Fi completed the “mobile adventure unit”.
Luckily, they only needed to sleep in the vehicle twice as most of their accommodation had been sponsored.
“Not many organisations would fund you before a single step has been taken,” Kruger says.
Even though the 43-year-old is not an elite runner, he has been taking the sport seriously for the past three years and ran his debut Comrades Marathon this year.
One of his goals was not to walk any part of the route. Instead, he gave himself a short break every 10km.
As much as his run was about raising funds, he really wanted to achieve systemic change.
“It was to connect with all the stores [on my route] in the Western and Eastern Cape.”
In Mdantsane, they had the full backing of the SPAR-branded stores.
“If it wasn’t for them these programmes wouldn’t be possible,” the runner said.
As much as it was about involving these retailers, it was also about encouraging Coach-in-a-Box partnerships.
Kruger believes the possibilities are endless across both provinces if schools were to be “adopted” by businesses supporting the initiative.
He refers to the transport and employment challenges many township residents face as “spatial inequality”, an element partially negated by the programme as their coaches can easily walk to the respective schools.
Is another leg-breaking campaign on the cards? Why not next year, Kruger smiles.
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