The first initiative was with a charity that is close to the heart of Bidvest Insurance, LIV village. On the week leading up to Mandela Day, our MD Phil Donnelley and his team headed up to LIV Owethu Clinic in the Cottonlands Rural Development. There they were met by LIV Business CEO Lee Shutte and the head doctor at the clinic Dr. Gerlinde Mandersloot.
The reason for this visit was so Bidvest Insurance could hand over a donation of R575,000 to the clinic to assist towards the overall running as well as salaries and medication. In the plight of COVID-19, this is needed now more than ever.
The clinic supports 12 – 20,000 people in the surrounding area and the biggest challenges they face are diseases associated with economic deprivation and the associated health care education; teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases.
However, this is not a once-off donation, the LIV model is all about sustainability, and Bidvest Insurance will look to partner more with LIV and see where they can assist with this sustainability. Currently, they are looking at a business venture to provide clean water to the Cottonlands Community. Watch this space!
The second initiative in support of Mandela Day was a fun challenge issued to our staff to collectively run or walk a combined distance of 67km in celebration of Madiba. Encouraging our teams to take care of their health while practicing social distancing and to work together to achieve our goal even when we may not be ‘together’ in the traditional sense of the word. And needless to say, our staff rose to the challenge and smashed it out the park with our resident fitness enthusiasts topping the internal leaderboard with the below results:
All in all, it was a different kind of Mandela Day, to say the least, but we are proud that we could still get involved and contribute to improving our communities and helping those in need and we look forward to continue to develop and build on our partnership with LIV-Village and their amazing teams!
