Vodacom improves lives
WITH the celebrations of its 15th anniversary this year, the Vodacom Foundation continues its commitment to giving back to the communities in which it operates.
Focusing primarily on education and health, the Vodacom Foundation identifies and supports sustainable projects that can help alleviate some of the country’s most pressing social challenges.
In 2011, Vodacom launched its flagship mobile education programme by partnering with the Department of Basic Education, Liberty, Microsoft, Cisco, and Mindset to collectively identify the need for teachers to be empowered through access to information communication technology (ICT).
The programme offers training and has trained over 10 000 teachers in maths and science from the schools on the programme on the use of ICT to improve their teaching in these subjects.
The teachers are also trained on how to integrate ICT in the classroom. In addition, Vodacom is hosting a teacher’s portal called the digitalclassroom, which, to date, has seen over 53 000 visits. It contains maths and science content and other valuable teaching resources.
A gateway offering free Internet access has also been created for teachers on the programme promoting access to learning anytime, anywhere.
A total of 40 teacher centres have been established which will offer teacher development training, youth and community programmes. There have been 893 schools equipped with ICT equipment. The Vodacom Foundation offers connectivity to these schools and centres, which enables them to access information.
Other Vodacom social investment programmes in the area of education include the Vodacom Foundation’s national stationery drive, where Vodacom provided stationery to 180 000 pupils from quintile one and two primary and high schools; the Vodacom Bursary Scheme which supports pupils by providing bursaries in the science and technology fields; the Vodacom Millionaires programme which donates four computer centres to public schools every month and the support to the Department of Basic Education in its food security programme.
Volunteering is another key focus of the Vodacom Foundation. The Vodacom Change the World programme was first introduced in 2011, giving individuals the opportunity to volunteer their time and skills to work at a nonprofit organisation (NPO) for a period of 12 months, at no cost to the NPO.
To date 40 volunteers with their 40 respective NPOs have successfully participated and each one of them has made a difference in the period that they worked with their NPO.
Through this programme, Vodacom contributes towards skills development and helps create a culture of volunteering, through the transfer of human capital. By relieving NPOs of the burden of paying for the services of skilled volunteers with a passion to work for a good cause, the programme provides much needed expertise to the NPO sector.
In helping make quality healthcare accessible to all South Africans, Vodacom is also committed to doing what it can to make people smile by supporting a project like the Vodacom Smile Week whereby Vodacom fulfills its commitment and plays an active role in changing a child’s future for the better.
Currently, one in 750 South African children is born with a facial abnormality.
During the Smile Foundation’s 13 years of existence, Vodacom has donated over R14-million and supported over 500 children through the Smile We e k ‘s model. To date, more than 1 000 children have benefited from surgeries around the country through partnering with state academic hospitals.
Through these Vodacom Foundation programmes, Vodacom will continue to build on its success of the last 15 years to help make our communities a better place to live in.