Absa, Telkom and Vodacom today launched a partnership with the aim of leveraging resources to have a greater impact on meeting the development needs of South African communities.
The partnership is seen as a catalyst for the South African corporate sector as it aims to make a huge and visible dent in the improvement of the quality of education, the eradication of poverty and combating the HIV pandemic.
Among the partnership`s beneficiaries are education organisations EduPlex, the Maths Centre For Professional Teachers (MCPT) and SciBono, a science and technology Centre in the New Market Precinct.
Moshe More, Absa`s General Manager: Corporate Social Investment and Government Relations, says: "We have to rise to the challenges occasioned by sustainable economic development. This is why we have pooled our material and financial resources and entered into this corporate relationship."
Nketheleng Vokwana, CEO of the Telkom Foundation, said at the launch function: "Telkom decided to collaborate with Absa and Vodacom Foundations as a business imperative. For us the true winners of this partnership are the people that we serve, the communities out there. We hope through this partnership to leverage each other`s strengths and by so doing maximise the impact of our projects."
The tripartite partnership aims to leverage the strength of the three companies and maximise the impact of their community development initiatives, minimise and eliminate duplication, foster greater collaboration and leverage support on government`s development programmes.
According to Mthobi Tyamzashe, Executive Chairman of the Vodacom Foundation, the Vodacom Foundation invests in projects that will make a significant positive difference to people`s lives. To this end, Vodacom believes that an alliance between three giants of the corporate social investment sector will produce results far greater than the sum of our individual efforts.
He said Vodacom had invested R180 million in corporate social investment projects over the past few years, with R30.6 million invested during the past financial year alone.
Vodacom`s philosophy is the belief that business should not just create profits, but that it should play a wider role in the society in which it operates. This is particularly the case in SA, where our history makes it incumbent upon companies a portion of profits to redress the imbalances of the past, concluded Tyamzashe.
Most importantly, the partnership intends to set benchmarks by establishing good practices within the corporate social investment funding fraternity.
It is timely to create awareness regarding the existence of the partnership as the need has now arisen to communicate to all the stakeholders that this partnership exists and inform interested parties about the impact that it envisages to make in the business environment.
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