The Telkom Foundation continued to support various welfare organisations countrywide that provide services and support to society’s most disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals. During 2014/15, almost R4.8 million was spent on 19 deserving organisations, which allowed the Foundation to enrich the lives of almost 28 000 individuals.
Beneficiaries are selected on the basis that they provide social relief to disadvantaged communities or facilitate health intervention projects relating to serious diseases.
Childline – provides psychological support to children in emotional distress through abuse or neglect, with experienced counsellors only a phone call away. Telkom Foundation sponsored the 08000 55 555 line for the year 2014/15, which benefitted 7 500 children.
Life Line – provides psychological support and counselling to South Africans countrywide. The national counselling line alone receives an average of 200 calls on issues ranging from trauma and suicide to relationship troubles. Telkom Foundation sponsors the Stop Gender Violence helpline which which allowed LifeLine to serve around 10 000 people.
Wep@Work – a protective workshop providing learners with physical and mental disabilities with skills to refurbish computers. The Telkom Foundation funds Wep@Work at Forest Town School for physically and cognitively challenged children.
Tembisa Child Welfare – caring for orphans and vulnerable children, including psychosocial support.
Sibonile Day Care Centre – early childhood development and poverty alleviation among children in rural areas.
Warm-Up Foundation – care for orphans and vulnerable children.
Women Against Abuse – providing psychosocial support for the abused.
Kopano Manyano – a shelter for the homeless based in Pretoria, to providing social relief to about 5 500 individuals.
Just Footprints – a national organisation affiliated with Choc, Reach for a Dream Foundation, Cotlands and Hope Trust that offers programmes to children suffering from life-threatening illnesses or trauma through abuse, abandonment, disability or the loss of parents.
Shonaquip – provides and services wheelchairs.
Siyathokozisa – a community organisation offering home-based care. It also runs a soup kitchen and community vegetable garden. Other services include an OVC programme and health campaigns.
Kgathelopele – offers home-based care, an OVC programme and health campaigns. It also runs a soup kitchen and community vegetable garden.
Santa Sedibeng – home-based care and healthcare services related to chronic illnesses such as HIV and TB.
Ntshalleng le Bana – home in Rustenburg for physically and mentally disabled children. It cares for around 30 children, offering medical, social and therapeutic care, and also provides aftercare services to other youngsters in the community.
Kopano Hospice – a home-based care centre, providing community healthcare services related to people suffering from HIV and TB.
Tsholofelo Support Group – a home-based care centre, providing community healthcare services related to chronic illnesses such as HIV and TB.
Tshireletso Home-Based Care – community healthcare services for more than 120 individuals with chronic illnesses such as HIV and TB.
Rethusa-Setjhaba Day Care Centre – a community organisation providing aftercare for orphans and vulnerable schoolchildren, providing food parcels and lifeskills, and care for the elderly.
Malirato Luncheon Club – care of orphans and vulnerable children and the running of a soup kitchen for children and the elderly.
This organisation provides an invaluable service in the community of Batho, Bloemfontein, Free State, offering early childhood development for children in their formative years, and developing youth from seven to 17 through involvement in activities such as bead- and craftmaking and cultural activities and supplying vegetables to the elderly.
From January 2015, more emphasis was placed on digital education for both staff and their charges. The Telkom Foundation grant of R300 000 made it possible to purchase for the three to four year olds digital educational toys, tables and chairs and stationery, as well as swings to develop muscles and coordination.
Those aged between five and 15 received digital educational toys, laptops, learning tablets and a plasma screen for children’s programmes to build reading and IT skills.
The teachers underwent ICT training to empower them with computer literacy skills to impart to the children. They were also given laptops for office work.
The South African National Tuberculosis Association (Santa) was formed in 1947 to establish SANTA branches, provide beds for TB patients and to offer care to TB patients and their families.
Today, Santa continues its fight against TB/HIV, but with a different emphasis. The diagnosis, drug treatment and inpatient care of TB/HIV patients are now handled mainly by the Department of Health. So, in addition to its awareness programmes, Santa trains volunteers to help TB/HIV patients in their communities by ensuring that they take their treatment.
Given the growing awareness of the importance of good nutrition in the prevention and management of TB, Santa has expanded its community outreach offering to feeding schemes.
With the R280 000 Telkom Foundation pledge during 2014/15, the Sedibeng arm of the organisation enhanced the computer skills of its volunteers and youth team leaders through the acquisition of laptops and computers and related equipment and training in basic computer literacy skills, which enhanced service to the community and communication with clinics and between staff and beneficiaries.
Shonaquip has its origins in a cardboard insert offered to Shona McDonald for her cerebral palsied daughter Shelley’s pram. At the time, it was the only seating available in South Africa for the purpose.
Shona threw herself into designing and building her first full body support wheelchair and, at two years of age, Shelley was already testing her ability to control her first motorised wheelchair. Recognising the need in others, Shonaquip was founded in 1992.
The enterprise has grown from a two-person team operating out of a garage into a business that employs more than 40 technicians, seamstresses and therapists, a dedicated team that has improved the lives of thousands of children with disabilities by providing essential devices, support services and training across southern Africa. Its success is reflected in the numerous awards it has won for social entrepreneurship.
Ongoing funding and support from organisations such as the Telkom Foundation – which pledged R500 000 during 2014/15 – allow Shonaquip to move closer to its vision of ensuring that the supply of appropriate devices and responsible services for people with disabilities in Africa and other developing economies grows to meet the demand.
Tembisa Child Welfare was started in 1986 by the Tembisa branch of the South African Black Social Workers Association. Funding and community support have seen it grow from a humble start in fabricated buildings and railway containers to a fully fledged care facility operating two children’s homes, two preschools, an administration block, workshops and a huge kitchen.
The preschools provide a safe haven for 150 children from 18 months to five years when parents are at work. Both physical and educational needs are addressed. The Telkom Foundation bought uniforms for children starting school.
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