Corporate social investment and staff volunteerism

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CSI FOCUS AREAS: COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

HIV/Aids is a particular area of focus for Nedbank within its CSI commitments to community development. During 2008 the foundation contributed to numerous community development projects and charities, among them the following:

Thokomala Orphan Care (KwaZulu-Natal)
The Thokomala Orphan Care organisation buys homes for orphaned children across the country. Each home has a housemother and houses six children in a loving family environment. The organisation also employs one social worker per house to offer emotional support, counselling and guidance to all children and their housemothers. The Nedbank Foundation donated R200 000 towards supporting the 14 homes currently run by the organisation.
 
South Coast Hospice Association (KwaZulu-Natal)
This hospice offers both home-based, specialised palliative care for patients with severe progressive diseases and a hospice facility for over 200 inhouse patients. Care is provided to patients who have been diagnosed with illnesses/diseases that have advanced to a point where they cannot be cured or managed. A donation of R250 000 was made towards maintaining the patient unit.
 
Nedbank Sun City Housing Project: Mabele A Podi Village (North West Province)
The project is aimed at assisting young families in which one or both parents have passed away, leaving behind a number of children and/or grandchildren. Nedbank supported and assisted with the building of 10 houses to the value of R500 000.

In the village of Lerome, Nedbank helped change the life of Betty Mataboge, a beneficiary of one of the houses built by Nedbank and Sun City during 2008. Nedbank Foundation responded to a call that came from within the community itself and provided Betty with the dignity of a home and a healthy shelter for her family of 11.

Prior to Nedbank’s intervention, Betty lived in a tin shack with 11 children, some of her own and others her sister’s children. Betty’s health is also fragile as she is living with epilepsy and survives on a government social grant and income from selling vetkoek at school. With no running water or electricity, life was a challenge. Now Betty’s house not only has electricity but has running water as well – moreover, Betty participated fully in the building of her house and takes pride in the vegetable garden that she helped plant.

 

Nedbank staff volunteers Joanne Isaacs and Tamara Matsoyiyane paint a window frame in one of the houses built by the Nedbank Foundation at the Lerome Village in North West Province.






Nedbank volunteers prepare the cement mixture to manufacture bricks onsite. This team made a total of 734 bricks on the day.

What was more exciting about this particular project in addition to staff assisting with building of the houses, was the jobs that were created. A number of villagers were employed as brickmakers and builders on the project. The skills that are left behind should strengthen the community of Lerome far beyond what a cheque could ever have done.

Carte Blanche‘Making a Difference’ Trust
The foundation donated R1 million for a dialysis machine at Johannesburg Hospital as part of the Carte Blanche ‘Making a Difference’ Trust. The objective of the trust is to address the plight of needy children by highlighting the needs of paediatric surgery units in five major hospitals around the country and addressing the needs of welfare organisations that focus on children.