ANNIVERSARY PROJECT PARTNERS
North-West Network on Violence against Women & Children: Skills Development & Capacity-building Programme (North-West Province)
The North-West Network on Violence against Women (NWNVAW)'s NPO Skills Development Programme aims at building the organisational capacity and practitioner skills of non-profit organisations (NPO's) that are members of the Network within the province. The project was initiated in the Bojanala District and it includes an advocacy programme, currently focusing on four districts within the province. The Skills Development, Advocacy & Awareness Programme consists of ten training modules that develop the professional skills and organisational capacity of local service providers, generating tangible benefits (including high quality service delivery and ensuring sustainable local community-based projects that are efficiently managed) in the North-West Province.
Each of the two-day modules is attended by thirty pre-identified delegates and thus the total reach of this capacity-building intervention is 300 community-based projects. To date, 937 delegates have been trained. In addition, the actual benefits are multiplied to all the many participants (several hundred in all these projects jointly) situated all over the province. Training in two of the four targeted districts have been completed, while the training in the remaining two districts has commenced and will be completed during 2019. Various CBO's have been enabled to raise funds from corporate and government sources as a result of the training they received.
Grace Vision: Zithulele Rural Schools Eye Care Outreach Project (Eastern Cape Province)
Grace Vision's Schools Eyecare Outreach Programme in the remote OR Tambo area of the Eastern Cape assists learners who are visually challenged and consequently face extreme learning disadvantages. Almost all of the aforementioned learners are tragically unaware of their condition and the concurrent limitations to their scholastic performance. The project goal is to improve the quality of life of these children by restoring and improving their eyesight through early detection and appropriate intervention.
Grace Vision has developed an effective, programme driven approach to implementing the project. To date the programme has overachieved in terms of all their goals with 22 535 children screened, 538 pairs of prescription spectacles distributed and twelve learners with serious visual challenges referred to a tertiary hospital for more intensive treatment.
The President's Award for Youth Empowerment: Youth Development Achievers Award Programme (Northern Cape Province & KwaZulu-Natal)
This project aims to enrol 430 young people from the Northern Cape Province and KwaZulu-Natal onto The President's Award's programme and to inspire 350 of these pupils to participate in all three levels of the awards programme (including Bronze, Silver and Gold).
All of the project goals have been achieved and, in some areas, the agreed targets have been exceeded. The project implementation in the Northern Cape Province has been very successful and a first ever "Career Expo" was conducted in Springbok. It is estimated that 3 000 youth were reached in the Namaqualand and in excess of two 200 parents have been made aware of the existence of the President's Award programme. The project implementation in KwaZulu-Natal proved more challenging and valuable lessons were learnt by the TPA regarding the pre-launch assessment requirements when introducing the awards programme in a new province/district. Plans are afoot to do a comparative analysis of pre/post intervention outcomes at one of the new project sites.
Free State Academic Mother & Child Hospital Trust: Establishment of the MACAH Foundation (Free State Province)
Initially, the overall project goal related to the establishment of a new Hospital Foundation that would be responsible for the resource mobilization and third-stream funding of a future Mother and Child Academic Hospital in the Free State. The project goals have since been refocussed to reflect four components, including the establishment of the MACAH Foundation, support of the "Children's Wing" within the current paediatric unit, implementing the "Make the First 1 000 Days Count" paediatric projects; and facilitation of the establishment of the Free State Mother and Child Academic Hospital.
Good progress has been made - two successful MACAH launches were undertaken, respectively in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein. The organisation's governance requirements have been successfully established. Following an extensive tender process, AfricaSky Holdings was appointed as the hospital developer in partnership with the University of the Free State (UFS), for the erection of a new MACAH hospital. The UFS have contributed to the partnership by donating the land whereon the construction of the new hospital is being planned. An application for a new hospital operating licence has also been launched by MACAH/AfricaSky Holdings. The project is poised to deliver a blue print model for future National Health Insurance (NHI) implementation in respect of Tertiary Paediatric (Mother and Infant) Health Care.
Milk Matters: Expanding Infant Access to Breast Milk (Western Cape Province)
Milk Matters is a Human Milk Breastmilk Bank based in Cape Town's Mowbray Maternity Hospital. The Growing Milk Matters - Saving Babies Project is aimed at putting measures in place to increase the number of babies with access to donor breastmilk resulting in decreased morbidity and mortality rates, as well as increasing breastfeeding rates in neonatal units in certain state hospitals in Cape Town.
To achieve this, capacity to supply hospitals with donor breastmilk is being expanded, both by increasing volumes of donor milk distributed and building an effective and efficient organisation with long-term sustainability. Breastfeeding support for both health professionals and mothers aims at improving breastfeeding prevalence and increasing breastfeeding rates in neonatal units.
WITS Paediatric Fund: Perinatal Asphyxia Project in Three Johannesburg-based Hospitals (Gauteng)
The Perinatal Asphyxia Project (PAP) at the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital (CMJAH) aims at reducing infant mortality and facilitating the development of neonatal skills of birth attendants, especially in instances where asphyxia is experienced at child birth.
PAP aims to provide new-born infants who sustain perinatal asphyxia with cerebral cooling. The CEFF-funded cooling machine has been installed and 149 babies have been cooled to date. The demand for the resuscitation training exceeds the organisation's training capacity and the Project Manager travels extensively to facilitate courses in various areas, including many poorly resourced rural settings. The primary healthcare community, especially in rural settings, is the target population for these courses. To date 802 midwives, nurses and doctors have been trained
University of the Witwatersrand - Hi Hopes: Early Intervention Programme for Deaf Children (Mpumalanga)
The Hi Hopes programme at the WITS Centre for Deaf Studies aims at providing early intervention services to families with deaf children, ultimately aiming at removing a range of barriers faced by these families. The Fuchs Anniversary Project funding facilitates the initiation and implementation of the programme in Mpumalanga.
The original challenges inherent to the rural and under-resourced nature of the province have been addressed and Hi Hopes is now operational in all areas of Mpumalanga. To date, twenty-one home interventionalists have been trained, providing home-based services to numerous families across the province. The Deaf Friends programme was launched in October 2018, and thirteen families are learning SASL from a Hi Hopes Deaf Friend as well as being supported by means of fortnightly visits. Hi Hopes has managed to build relationships with a variety of referral agents in the province, including fifteen public hospitals and four private audiologists resulting in many referrals of families in need of their help. The organization is in the process of developing an application "APP" that will enable the management of the project and, once implemented successfully, is to be rolled-out to all other provinces where Hi Hopes operates.
University of Johannesburg: Establishment of a Fuchs Regional Disability Resource Centre (Gauteng)
The centre aims to improve accessibility and support for students/learners with special needs both at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) situated in Soweto and the surrounding community.
Over the years and through community engagement activities, there has been a marked increase in the need for disability support within the various surrounding communities of the university. Very often the UJ Disability Unit is approached by external TVET colleges, special schools and associated NGO's for resource and operational assistance. The establishment of the Fuchs Regional Disability Resource Centre (FRDRC) on the UJ Soweto Campus was successfully completed, while a second objective of the project involves an outreach programme to the surrounding community to make the newly-established resources available to them. The latter goal has manifested in relocating the centre to the Adelaide Tambo School in Soweto. Once the satellite centre has been fully established and is able to function independently, a new satellite can be set-up at another school. This will enable the FRDRC to reach the surrounding community more effectively than in the past.
North-West University: Teachers Without Borders - Indigenous Science/Mathematics Labs in Rural Schools (Limpopo, Western Cape Province, Northern Cape Province & KwaZulu-Natal)
The overall goal of this project is to empower Science and Mathematics teachers to better contextualise STEM education for learners by showing them, through short learning programmes, demonstrating how curriculum themes relate to everyday life and by providing teachers with learning resources such as Science laboratory kits and a range of relevant teaching resource materials.
The project has developed considerable momentum during the past three years and their research data substantiates the significant impact that the project has on teaching and learning. Significant lessons have been learnt by the project leaders, including how to further improve the project impact by focusing intense support to smaller numbers of "master teachers" who act as agents of change in their schools/regions. All teachers that received the training were provided with Physical, Life and Natural Science kits, Optic kits, the Tshimologong Mathematics kit, the Technology kits, Foldscope microscopes, as well as a new resource, "The Famine and Abundance Game", that has been developed for Life Sciences and Mathematics teaching.
An unintended positive project consequence was the development of "puppets" as a resource to enhance scientific literacy of learners at foundation education level. Teachers involved in this aspect of the project are now empowered to write their own puppet scripts. These puppets are made by unemployed women in the Jan Kempdorp district. The consequential employment opportunities so created resulted in a positive spin-off for the local community.
National Science & Technology Forum: Promotion of Science, Engineering & Technology Studies/Careers for Youth in South Africa (National)
The aim of this project is to guide young people towards careers in Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) by presenting them with SET role models, exposing them to SET career opportunities and assisting them to access bursaries. The three project objectives respectively manifest in the NSTF Brilliance Programme, Share & Dare Programme and the Bursary Programme.
NSTF's exhibition at the 2018 Annual Scifest was a great success, to the extent that it will be repeated during the 2019 calendar year. Their Brilliance Tour, for outstanding achievers in Mathematics and Science at matric level, was successfully completed and extended from the original one-day event into one full calendar week. This also included an Astro-tour that was conducted in partnership with Square Kilometre Array (SKA). The Department of Science & Technology (DST) has since provided funding for bursaries. All the "Brilliants" students of 2016, 2017 and 2018 have now received bursaries.
Collaboration with the Academy of Science South Africa (ASSA) has led to articles about the award winners being placed in the Journal of Science and articles on the brilliants students, in their capacity as role models, have appeared in the popular science magazine "Quest:" The bursary directory service has been significantly improved and extended, and it is regularly updated.
CUT Centre for Rapid Prototyping & Manufacturing: Changing Faces, Changing Lives - Reconstructive Surgery & 3-D Printing Technology (Free State Province)
The aim of this project is to improve the lives of patients who require radical reconstructive facial surgery and who would typically, as state patients, not be assisted otherwise. The Centre for Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing (CRPM) has developed technology to design and manufacture Maxillofacial Prosthesis at a fraction of the traditional/private sector costs.
To date, thirty-three cases have been successfully completed. The results and quality of work are impressive to the extent that it has attracted international interest and recognition. Several international engineering and medically-related Expos have invited presentations by the project team on the innovations created by the CRPM/CEFF project.
Significant value-added and life-changing impact has been achieved for many desperate patients thus far. The project team is in the process of documenting necessary and important base-line information to substantiate the medical and other benefits generated by their innovations. The compilation of the benefits directly promotes the international marketability of their products and may well lead to commercialisation of these new technologies. Several local and international players in this industry have already indicated their interest to partner and collaborate with the CRPM on this project. The benefits and products developed by this project compete with "best in class" on a world-wide basis.
Johannesburg Centre for Software Engineering: Tshimologong Digital Innovation Challenge (Gauteng)
The aim of this project is to promote, support and develop aspiring digital innovators and entrepreneurs. In consultation with CEFF, specific topics and challenges are announced, and aspiring entrepreneurs then participate in a challenge with a view to developing the new technology.
The first challenge that was introduced by the JCSE related to a real-life need as proposed by the Wits Disability Rights Centre. The challenge aimed at the development of new technology (an application or "APP") for blind students at Wits, called the Wits University Campus Personal Navigator Challenge. A second challenge, known as The World of Science and Technology Explorer, was launched during the first quarter of 2018. The challenge was aimed at providing Professionals in SET (PROSET) with technology to stimulate young people's curiosity and interested in topics related to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and its associated career opportunities.
