With Father’s Day fast approaching, the 947 Breakfast Club team, decided to take a different approach this year. Instead of giving away prizes or gifts to deserving fathers, the team reached out to Johannesburg residents to assist in raising funds for the next 12 months towards The Character Company’s mentorship programme.

The Character Company relies on public contributions and donations to be able to train and hire mentors. Upon hearing this on the 947 Breakfast Club this morning, LottoStar was moved and contributed R100 000 to the mentorship programme.

The Character Company is a mentorship programme that seeks to address the issues and impact of absent fathers in different households and communities. The mentorship programme is for young boys, from ages as young as 5 to 10 years old. These boys come from fatherless households and are facing issues that come with the absenteeism of their fathers. They are mentored to become good men with strong values to positively impact their families, communities and society.

In one of the interviews, the 947 Breakfast Club interviewed one of The Character Company’s young mentees, Troy, who explained how the mentorship programme improved his relationship with his father. “I used to be so lonely and didn’t really like to talk that much. So, now it made it easier for me to talk with my dad”, explained Troy.

The Character Company focuses on long-term mentoring and relationship building. It’s five core values are courage, kindness, self-disciple, honesty and respect. The programme has weekly activities for age similar groups of up to 5 boys at a time, weekend activities where all groups and families come together, different camps throughout the year, structure support for single mothers which advocate for better treatment of women and children. “

"We believe that each boy should know the 5 values, understand what they mean, understand how to practically apply them to his life and most importantly know that without Jesus is it impossible to do this,” concluded Jaco van Schalkwyk, founder of The Character Company.