Archive for July, 2010
Tshikululu CEO wins financial services award
30 July 2010
Tshikululu Social Investments is pleased to announce the awarding of its CEO, Tracey Henry, as financial services category winner in the “2010 Most Influential Women in Business and Government Awards” at a ceremony at Midrand’s Gallagher Estate today.
“This recognition is especially pleasing as it shows an appreciation of the CSI fund and trust management that has been undertaken by Tshikululu on behalf of major South African corporations for the past 12 years”, notes Henry. “Gratifying too is that it should be made for the work of our not-for-profit company, despite our being bracketed with top range financial services institutions.”
Tshikululu managed R495 million of corporate social investment funds in 2009, and acts as grantmaker manager to community development initiatives throughout South Africa. Clients whose CSI trusts are managed include Anglo American, De Beers, the FirstRand Group, Discovery, and UTi.
This work saw Tshikululu undertake 241 individual project site visits last year, and process more than 3 000 applications for NGO funding. Tshikululu is South Africa’s largest private sector vehicle for corporate social investment grantmaking.
" alt="Can South Africa really reduce its carbon footprint by 34%?" />Can South Africa really reduce its carbon footprint by 34%?
For SA policy makers pressured to put the economy onto a stronger job growth trajectory, meeting ambitious climate-change goals will add to a tricky balancing act.
This is an extract from an article written by Carol Paton for the Financial Mail, published in the 30 July 2010 edition and online on 29 July 2010.
On December 6 last year, just before President Jacob Zuma jetted off to Copenhagen to meet 110 other heads of state, his office issued a press statement: South Africa would reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 34% by 2020, and by 42% by 2025. Emissions were expected to rise until 2020, when they would peak, plateau for a decade, and then decline in absolute terms.
As the summit unfolded it became clear what must have happened: just as developing countries wanted to pressure developed countries into binding targets, the richer nations wanted the same from the emerging world. Allied with emerging powerhouses China, India and Brazil — which had all come forward and made pledges — and eager to play in the major league, SA had to commit to targets even if it did so in a rush and without a plan on how it would do it.
The power of cellphones in the classroom
A South African education company has figured out a way to allow children to access electronic books (e-books) even when they do not have access to desktop computers.
In South Africa, the government is still unable to ensure that the 12- million-odd pupils in public schools get all the textbooks they need. Only 14,8% of households, and only 33% of schools, have computers that are used for teaching and learning.
However, a University of SA survey of Gauteng high school pupils showing 75,4% access the internet via cellphones, suggests the ability to open a textbook using a device many pupils have opens up great possibilities.
Star Schools, which provides extra tuition to 37000 children nationally, and 22000 by distance tuition, is to launch this technology nationally through its technology division, My Star, next month . The system will also allow children to pay only for the parts of the e-books they need .
Maths teacher Guy Hees, who moderated Star Schools’ maths e-book, says while the new technology has not yet been widely used, or stood the test of a matric exam, he expects it to be “hugely effective”. Children like modern technology that is “accessible 24/7” , he says. “They can hugely benefit from this … at this stage, there are universities in the US, but not schools, that are using this type of technology,” says Prof Hees, who taught in a Los Angeles district five years ago.
English teacher Karen Ehlers, who has used the Grade 11 English First Additional Language e-book , says her pupils have welcomed it . “They love it. They are excited and they want to come to class…. It’s not chalk and talk any more, they want interactivity.”
Read the full article at Business Day.
Political will can solve malnutrition in Africa
28 July 2010
“Children don’t vote,” said Dr Robert Mwadime, of Uganda Action for Nutrition, at a session on the subject before the three-day African Union (AU) meeting opened in Kampala, Uganda. This means that political leaders in Africa often pay scant attention to the millions of children who die every year of malnutrition-related causes. Most of the audience nodded in agreement; many clapped.
The theme of the AU meeting was “Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa”, so it was an apt opportunity to wave the flag. “Nutrition is practically an orphan,” Mkandawire commented. About 40 percent of children younger than five in Africa are chronically malnourished.
Activist argues against South Africa’s mass HIV testing campaign
South Africa’s campaign to test 15 million people for HIV in one year risks being implemented in a way that undermines people’s human rights, the activist Mark Heywood told the Eighteenth International AIDS Conference in Vienna. Incidents of coercive testing have been recorded but the lack of effective monitoring procedures means that it’s impossible to know whether those incidents are widespread or not.
South Africa ‘failing in child health’
South Africa is one of 12 countries that has failed to reduce child mortality since 1990, according to the 2009/10 SA Child Gauge released on Tuesday.
Children were paying the price for the country’s failure to progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aimed to reduce poverty, hunger and disease by 2015 and to ensure children’s rights to survival, health and development, it said.
More Gauteng clinics set to provide ARVs
27 July 2010
The number of clinics in Gauteng providing Anti-Retroviral Treatment to HIV positive patients is set to increase by 61 by the end of the month.
Health and Social Development MEC Qedani Mahlangu has ordered that all clinics should provide the treatment by September, in line with the new treatment guidelines that came into effect in April. ARV treatment was previously available in hospitals and community health centres.
" alt="Monumental AIDS breakthrough - or is it?" />Monumental AIDS breakthrough – or is it?
26 July 2010
Action needs to be taken to eradicate HIV/Aids, not just treat its victims or attempt to control its spread.
John R. Talbott is the bestselling author of eight books on economics and politics that have accurately detailed and predicted the causes and devastating effects of the current financial crisis. In 2007, Talbott authored two articles on achieving Aids prevention and the need for confidential and compulsory universal testing in the most infected countries after having spent three months living in Aids-ravaged Botswana. This article was first published by Huffington Post.
A vaginal gel applied by women prior to sexual encounters has been found in a double blind field test conducted in South Africa to reduce AIDS infection rates by 39%. Upon first hearing this, it would be natural to conclude that use of this gel would reduce reported cases of AIDS in Africa by 39%; or, if you were a woman living in Africa you might conclude that use of this gel might dramatically help you from getting infected in the future. You would not be alone in thinking this was a groundbreaking discovery as the announcement of these test results brought a standing ovation from the audience of scientists and NGO’ers at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna.
Finding the missing link in HIV battle
South Africa is moving fast to consolidate the scientific breakthrough announced last week by local HIV and Aids experts, who showed that a vaginal gel containing the antiretroviral tenofovir could prevent HIV in 40 percent of women.
There is more to social investment than giving money
21 July 2010
Sizwe Nxasana is the CEO of the FirstRand Group, and Chairman of the FirstRand Foundation. This article was originally published by Business Day on 21 July 2010.
For many companies, corporate social investment means writing out cheques. These companies fulfil their corporate social investment requirements but have little real involvement in the initiatives which they fund.
But the partnership approach, whereby companies approach corporate social investment in a far more consultative manner, means greater involvement on the company’s part, and usually results in more sustainable solutions for its beneficiaries.
