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Albert van Nierop with Jay Robinson MVNF-winner award winner 5-8 April 2011
Verslag van Sophie van Nierop over haar werk op de Norma Road Primary school
Nieuwsbrief van de Maurits van Nierop Foundation in 2011
Maurits van Nierop was a member of the Dutch National Cricket team and was an extremely gifted player. Not only did Maurits excel in cricket, he also mastered the game of field hockey very well.
Maurits van Nierop died in a tragic accident in Cape Town in September of 2008. To commemorate this extraordinary person and sportsman the “Maurits van Nierop Foundation” has been founded. It is our belief that every child has the right to play sports. This right has been settled in the Treaty for the rights of the child of the United Nations.
Sports are an important part in the development for each child. They gain more confidence, meet other children, exercise more, learn to how to handle rules and discipline and have to deal with winning and losing. Above all, sports are fun and good for you.
Unfortunately there are too many children in the world who do not have the possibilities to do sport. This is mostly due to a lack of facilities and lack of financial support. This is where the Foundation wants to help. Special attention will go to the children of the Khayelitsha Township in Cape Town. With you help the Foundation can support projects and initiate own projects in Cape Town. The Norma Road Primary School and Ryan Maron’s Cricket School of Excellence are some examples of projects we are supporting in South Africa. Please take time to visit our website and do not forget to check on how you can help.
Maurits’ family, together with friends, have set up the Maurits van Nierop Foundation to continue the extraordinary character of this beautiful person, who was a fantastic sportsman besides being a beautiful friend. There was never a dull moment with Maurits.
Maurits was born in Capetown, South Africa and loved to play cricket and hockey during his life. The Foundation’s goal is to raise money for African children who don’t have the opportunity and financial means to play sports.
We would like to let poor children get in contact with cricket and hockey by giving clinics or invest in other material aspects.
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Ryan and Maurits - good times!
Maurits Willem Albert van Nierop - Memorial tree planted on the
24th September 2011 at the "wall" in Cape Town
The Carob Tree (Ceratonia siliqua)
The Algarrobo tree (Ceratonia siliqua, Carob tree) is very characteristic of the Mediterranean region. The plant is also prolific all over the Middle East, where it has been in cultivation for at least 4,000 years. The plant was known to the ancient Greeks who planted the seeds in Greece and Italy.
The Carob tree provides one of Mallorca’s traditionally most important crops, the algarroba fruit (carob fruit, also known as locust bean).
Carob trees grow well where citrus fruit is grown. They prefer dry climates that receive more than 30 centimetres of annual rainfall. In other words: the Mediterranean-type climate.
During September and October you will see Mallorcan farmers (or their wives) beating long dark carob beans off their trees with long sticks. Unfortunately, in Mallorca over the last few years algarrobo trees are more and more neglected. The cost of manpower is too high nowadays to harvest the carob pods with the wholesale price per kilo of carob beans being as low as 18 Euro Cents. Not worth one’s while really, unless one does the job oneself.
The fruit of carob is a pod, technically a legume of 15 to 30 centimetres in length, fairly thick and broad. Pods are borne on the old stems of the plant on short flower stalks. Carob trees can have both, male and female flowers. The dark-brown pods are eaten directly by livestock (horses, mules, sheep, pigs, goats), but us humans know carob mainly because the pods are ground into a flour that is a cocoa substitute. Good for people who suffer from diabetes, for instance.
The carob bean is widely used as a substitute for chocolate. Although this product has a slightly different taste than chocolate, it has only one third of its calories. It is virtually fat-free (chocolate is half fat), is rich in pectin, is non-allergenic and has no oxalic acid, which interferes with absorption of calcium. Carob is also rich in sucrose (almost 40 %, plus other sugars) and protein (up to 8 %). The pod has vitamin A, several B vitamins, and a number of important minerals. As a consequence, carob flour is widely used in health foods for chocolate-like flavouring.
There are plenty of other uses of carob as well, medicinal, pharmaceutical, cosmetic and industrial.
The seed of the Carob tree is the ancient weight used by goldsmiths in the days of yore to weigh gold and precious stones. The seed of the carob fruit is always of the same weight, hence the word carat (from Ceratonia).
There are references to the carob in the Bible. For example, this plant is also called St. John’s Bread or locust bean because of the pods which were thought to have been the locusts that were supposedly eaten by John the Baptist in the wilderness. Some people think that it is the carob fruit that is referred to in the Bible as the Manna from Heaven, both, for its nutritional value and also for its easy availability.
Mohammed’s army ate kharoub, and Arabs planted the crop in northern Africa and Spain when the Iberian peninsula was invaded by the Moors. The Spanish later carried carob to Mexico and South America, and the British took carob to South Africa, India, and Australia.
Who we are
12-15 December 2011 Maurits van Nierop Kids
10-12 December 2011 Maurits van Nierop Kids
