VISION
THE AWARDS CYCLE
GOLD
12 projects were awarded Gold in 2008
Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children
The Teddy Bear Clinic began in 1986 as an outpatient service of the Johannesburg Hospital in response to the problem of child abuse in South Africa where resources and expertise in the field are limited. Since then, it has grown into a Non-Profit Organization (NPO) that provides a variety of services to abused children, disabled children and adults, their families and the Child Protection System.
Outreach Greening Programme
The Outreach Greening Progamme was initiated on the Cape Flats in partnership with the Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens (NBG) in 1997. The programme targets self-motivated community organizations and schools wanting to establish indigenous gardens and green community spaces in their areas. The South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) created a three-year cycle programme, with 15 schools per cycle, supporting schools and community organizations with horticultural training and the development of their indigenous starter garden.
Greening of The Nation Programme WC
The Greening of the Nation Programme was started in December 2004 and was effectively implemented from mid 2005 in the Western Cape. The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (DEAT) funds the project through the Poverty Relief Fund and the facilitating agent is the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI).
HEART Project
The HEART (Helping Expanding ARTs) project is based at the Vukuphile clinic - Vryheid hospital, in the KZN Zululand District. It was started in 2006 as a partnership between the Elizabeth Glaser Paediatric AIDS Foundation (EGPAF) and the KZN Department of Health. The foundation provides infrastructure upgrading and training to nursing staff so that rural patients can have access to ARTs and to assist with ARV rollout to clinics.
ARK: Absolute Return for Kids
Absolute Return for Kids (ARK) has been supporting a Community Access and Adherence Programme in the Western Cape since February 2004. This is an extension of their clinical Antiretroviral Treatment (ART) programme that revealed the need for a web of supportive strategies for HIV positive persons at both the clinic and community level.
Masakh’iSizwe Centre of Excellence
The centre came about as a response to the shortage of skills in the transport, engineering and built environment fields in the Western Cape. In line with the ASGISA and JIPSA strategies, the Dept of Transport and Public Works launched a bursary programme in February 2006 for 250 financially disadvantaged learners, with a particular focus on female candidates and those from rural areas.
Makana Meadery Beekeeping Project
The Makana Meadery, founded in 2000 facilitates the Beekeeping Project. The meadery is a commercial company that produces their own form of mead (collective name for alcoholic beverages made from honey) called Honey Sun African Mead and other honey-based products. They export internationally to countries like Japan and the USA where their mead is being sold in 37 states.
Upgrading of Early Childhood Development Centres
Education in South Africa is the vehicle for eradicating poverty. Lack of adequate resources, skills development and unemployment is a burden to ending the cycle of poverty. Thus effectively supporting Early Childhood Development (ECD) is the first step on the ladder to realizing this goal. This government-initiated ECD project, started in January 2006 and it seeks to address this by upgrading ECD centers in order for them to meet the requirements to register with the Dept of Social Development (DOSD). The DOSD then partnered with The Centre for Early Childhood Development (CECD) and employed them as a service provider to upgrade ECD centers in and around the Cape Flats region.
Sunshine Centre Association
The Sunshine Centre Association (SCA) was established in 1976, initiated by civil society it focuses on children with physical and intellectual disabilities and their families. By addressing the inadequacies of the institutional support structure for these children and their families, SCA provides a nurturing and supportive environment for these families. They run various programmes at four sites in Craighall, which serves Berea, Hillbrow, Alexandra, another in Soweto, Elderado Park and the Elsburg project serves the community of Ekurhuleni.
Ubom! Heartbeat Theatre
Established in 2003 by means of funding from the National Arts Council and the National Lottery Board, the Ubom project is the only full time professional theatre company in the Eastern Cape. The gap left in the Eastern Cape art scene by the apartheid government’s policies was not filled after democracy. To address this need, the 1999 Arts and Culture White Paper hoped to create three drama companies in each province, but this did not materialise in the Eastern Cape. For years the Eastern Cape theatre scene was disadvantaged and while theatre flourished in centres like Cape Town and Johannesburg, these cities drew all the talent away from the Eastern Cape
Rural Education Access Programme (REAP)
Through tertiary education young men and women can escape poverty, change their lives and uplift their families. Rural matriculants however, are often unable to access further education due to poverty, lack of information and networks, distance from urban centres and educational hubs and historical apartheid discrimination. The Rural Education Access Programme (REAP) is an NPO associated with the Southern African Catholic Bishop’s Conference (SACBC) based in Cape Town but operating nationally.
Integrated Community-Based Home Care (ICHC) Knysna Sedgefield Hospice
KSH Integrated Community-Based Home Care (ICHC) provides equally accessible quality home-based palliative care to all referred individuals with a chronic and debilitating, or terminal illness and provides support to their families in partnership with the Department of Health, the European Union as well as various NGOs and foundations.
The Tshepang Trust
The project is based in Gauteng but operates nationally in both urban and rural environments. It aims to increase access to HIV/AIDS treatment, aid in preventing the spread of the disease, and to eradicate the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS. The Tshepang Trust uses a two-model approach to treatment delivery that makes use of private healthcare, specifically General Practitioners (GPs), in addition to public healthcare facilities (hospital and clinic ARV centres). The Tshepang Trust trains interested GPs nation-wide in HIV/AIDS Clinical Management and equips them to deliver treatment
South Africa’s Top Social Innovators Vie for a Coveted Impumelelo 2010 Sustainability Award!
