Call 2 Care’s vision has always been to deliver support and be champions of social outreach each day of the year, but there comes that special time in July for every South African to give back – Mandela Day. Remembering Tata Madiba on Mandela Day means service and community. ‘’Do what you can, with what you have and where you are’’ is the theme for this year's Mandela Day and with this in mind, Call 2 Care brought people together for its very own Mandela Week, an opportunity to create a massive impact across initiatives.
Turning food waste into ecobricks with Waste-ED
Monday was all about breaking ground with the Waste-ED – a waste to resource project team in the Waste to Food partnered initiative at False Bay College in Khayelitsha. Most aligned with the messaging of 2022’s Mandela Day theme focused on climate change and food security, we made progress building vegetable garden beds using Waste-ED’s ecobricks filled with single-use waste. With help from the main funder Old Mutual Insure and sponsored refreshments from Gravel Road Films Distribution Group, members of the ground staff and the student representative council (SRC) at False Bay, Waste-ED and Call 2 Care were able to sequester 3 tons of waste, while building vegetable gardens out of Ecobricks. These gardens will feed 400 people per day.
Carehaven Women’s Shelter
While the Waste to Food project was making headway, other moving parts at Salvation Army’s Carehaven Women’s Shelter Movement were coming together. This partnership was a passion project focused on shedding light on the rise in gender-based violence (GBV) in South Africa. According to Statistics South Africa, one out of five women experience domestic violence, and those numbers are based solely on reported incidents. Given this, Call 2 Care was left with the question, where do these women turn when they cannot look to their families for support? On July 18th, Call 2 Care set an initiative in motion with Carehaven Shelter, a sanctuary for women who have been victims of GBV and their children. The Mandela Day Pamper & Picnic was set up to shower Carehaven’s residents with hair-dressing services, manicures, make-up, facials, and massages all provided by skilled volunteers, with food generously donated by Spar.
Call 2 Care also reached deep into their network and to the public to call for donations of essentials like toiletries and sanitary products. Donations included more than 250 products for the women, toys for their children, as well as a TV and DVD player for the premises. We also had 45 care packages donated by CTICC staff, sanitary products worth R5 000 donated by Larry Sherman, and 3 brand new prams donated by Tracy Henry. Moreover, the day would not have been possible without PSG’s generous donations, including food platters, treat bags, and beauty equipment. The spirit of Ubuntu really came alive with this initiative as all the volunteers and donors connected in a joint effort to make the women of Carehaven Shelter feel special, loved, and treated to some of the things so many of us take for granted.
Reigniting the REVAMP Initiative
While the week marked new beginnings for some projects, Tuesday’s activities brought life to some of Call 2 Care’s long-standing projects – the partnership with JustSpace Academy which began last year with the hope to REVAMP the space. Thanks to the creative direction and accompanying volunteers from M2Bio Sciences, 30 delegates from the project’s funders Mainstream Renewable Power, and Call 2 Care’s REVAMP volunteers, a new milestone was reached. 7 painted classrooms with themed murals, a reception welcome mural, and painted ceilings were completed, courtesy of the guidance received from Sherwood Construction Co., Inc, as well as YoYo Food Company who kept the teams going with a generous supply of food and refreshments.
From one early childhood development centre to another, our work extended to Ravensmead Crèche and this project was driven by Pepkor’s desire to deliver upliftment in the Parow area. With a handover of 145 food parcels/care packages for the learners and their families, large cooking pots for community food preparation, shell pools, puzzles, a revamp of the playground, restoration of the swing sets, and the building of a new trampoline by Call 2 Care volunteers, this initiative made a long-standing impact on the experience of the learners. This fired up an amazing partnership with Ravensmead Crèche, which will include an even bigger REVAMP project with Pepkor on the 24th of August.
Ending off Mandela Week in true Call 2 Care style
Coming off the back end of Pride month, Call 2 Care recognised another opportunity to further celebrate and support the LGBTQIA+ community. A collaboration with Pride Shelter Trust, Africa’s first formal haven assisting at-risk LGBTQIA+ youth, presented that very opportunity. With generous donations from Club Mykonos Langebaan Resort, 46 care packages with essential products were donated to the shelter.
With so many events having taken place throughout the week, we did not expect so much more to come out of it. You can imagine our surprise and gratitude when Neutriherbs South Africa chose Call 2 Care as their CSR partner for this Mandela Day and donated 10% of all their sales made on July 18th. Moreover, we received contributions from Old Mutual, as part of their ESG Future of Sustainability initiative, for our Spekboom tubes project which was established to help fight climate change. In addition to the overwhelming generosity and contributions, Call 2 Care continues to appeal for clothing and blanket donations for the upcoming Winter Warmer Drive & Heritage Clothing Collab in September.
Described as a week of “wholehearted, wholesome love” by those here at Call 2 Care, there’s no better way to commit to Mandela Day by bringing light to the communities around us. Call 2 Care is committed to supporting community development in sustainable ways and through educational outreach projects that give beneficiaries the skills to uplift themselves, while also being leaders in the fight against climate change.
If you’re looking to make a contribution to any of our current or future projects, you can find out more here. If you’re a company seeking dynamic ways to tick to-dos off your CSR list, there’s the opportunity to get involved and become a Call 2 Care partner dedicated to driving change across communities and beneficiaries.