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A former Rondebosch Boys High School pupil has won $100 000 - about R1 million - in a top international award that will allow him to expand his project that trains head-of-household orphans for sustainable jobs in the ecotourism industry.
Andrew Muir, 43, chief executive of the Eastern Cape-based Wilderness Foundation South Africa and one of South Africa's best-known conservationists, is among five winners of the prestigious 2008 Rolex Awards for Enterprise, being presented at a gala ceremony in Dubai tonight.
He is being honoured for his Umzi Wethu ("Our Home") Training Academy for Youth, set up in Port Elizabeth where he lives and in Somerset East.
In this social interventionist project, orphans - about 60 percent of whom have lost their parents to HIV and Aids - are given life skills and training to become chefs and rangers in South Africa's ecotourism industry.
As part of their year-long training, students in the pilot academies also spend about one week every two months in a bush camp in a wilderness area where they are mentored by retired game rangers.
Muir, the chairman of the Eastern Cape Parks Board and a prot?g? of legendary wilderness guru Dr Ian Player and former UCT vice-chancellor Mamphela Ramphele, specialises in promoting the use of nature in human development - and particularly for young people who are most at risk in society.
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