Once a year around Earth Day (22nd April), AccorHotels organises “Planet 21 Day”, an important event in which the hotel chains and their teams become fully involved in a particular initiative.

It is the perfect opportunity for Accor staff all around the world to proudly showcase their commitment to sustainable development. In 2017, AccorHotels launched the Green Stars campaign to promote sustainable food - a main priority of the Planet 21 programme.

The campaign was developed to challenge their teams from around the world to share their best “green” actions to fight food waste within their respective industries.

The hotels were asked to arrange a project and or activity focusing on one of the 3 topics – healthy food, vegetable gardens or food waste. Since September 2018, Mercure Hotels Randburg have been sending their food waste to a composting depot via Earth Probiotic. Earth Probiotic have an organic product which Mercure Hotel Randburg uses and adds to the hotels food waste which breaks down the food.

On the 3rd May 2019, the hotel chain collected 100kg of compost from Earth Probiotic which had been developed utilising the food waste and donated it to the Mother of Peace organization in North Riding, Johannesburg.

The organisation has an existing vegetable garden however their soil is of poor quality as they are close to a river and in a valley. Together with Earth Probiotic, Mercure Randburg will share some tips with Mother of Peace employee, Lucky who takes care of the vegetable garden whilst continuing to donate compost and seeds to help develop the veggie garden.

On the initiative, General Manager of Mercure Randburg, Michelle Cross said: “As the GM for Mercure Hotel based in Randburg, we are proud to have been associated with the Planet 21 Initiative.

The leadership and staff of Mercure Randburg are driven and geared to support all campaigns or visionary efforts that ensures the long-term sustainability of our plant and the environment. We pledge nil tolerance to environmental pollution.

At Mercure, we attempt to recycle, reuse and sustain all our waste with a vision for “zero waste to landfill. Hence our commitment to Planet 21 and the production of compost from our kitchen waste.

We hope that fellow organizations in all sectors follow suit and we do believe that there is a fortune that we can create from our waste.

The deeply dedicated staff at Mercure Randburg are custodians of this statement. I am proud of the efforts made by my staff and honoured to be associated to the initiatives of Planet 21”.

Globally, the Green Stars campaign was a phenomenal success! Hotels from all over the world got involved and showed their creative side.

South Africa’s youth unemployment problem has consistently been ranked as one of the worst in the world.* As we observe World Youth Skills Day on 13 July 2018, it is difficult to overlook the fact that 64% of our young people are currently unemployed. This shocking statistic can be attributed to a wide range of socio-economic factors such as poor levels of education and lack of mobility.    

Columba, Absa and M4JAM have recently announced the roll-out of the ‘Absa ReadytoWork’ programme in 20 schools across the country, in response to the situation and to empower learners with the skills needed to succeed. The programme hopes to positively influence the future of 5 000 grade 10 and 11 learners, by giving them the essential tools needed for the transition from school into the working world. The roll-out comes after the success of last year’s pilot programme in 13 schools in Gauteng.    

“Although schools do their best to teach learners everything they need to know in the curriculum, they do not always have the means or the time to equip learners with all the skills necessary to attain employment and keep it,” says Desmond Zeelie, Columba special projects officer. “With this platform, we hope to enhance and bring some relief to our over-loaded and over-worked education system,” he continues.   

The programme is made-up of four modules, which focus on enhancing work skills such as finding and applying for suitable jobs; people skills like interpersonal skills needed when working in a team; money skills to do with managing personal finances, and entrepreneurial skills related to those required when starting a business. These courses are facilitated and conducted by trained Columba alumni, which in turn provide the alumni with employment, experience and the opportunity to make a difference.   

Columba Leadership is a non-profit youth based leadership organisation that has worked in 169 schools in nine-years; assisting each school for several years to build capacity in order for the school to sustain the programme. The organisation works to help youths from impoverished backgrounds access their full potential and sense of purpose through value-focussed and innovative ways that build character and develop essential life skills that are necessary for success in and after school.   

“Instead of treating unemployed youth as a problem, we’ve made them part of the solution and employed them to upskill other unemployed youths. This approach has allowed students and facilitators to meet on common ground, as each member understands the harsh realities faced in these areas enabling them to contextualise the information accordingly,” says Tracy Hackland, Columba CEO.  “The next generation needs to be innovative to help solve the problems we face today,” concludes Hackland.    

For more information about Columba Leadership (www.columba.org.za) contact Tracy Hackland at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or 011 440 5790.  

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73 early childhood development (ECD) centres in Nelson Mandela Bay’s developing communities that received intervention from Early Inspiration across 2016/17 reflected an average of 15% improvement in terms of centre compliance at post-assessment.

“124 passionate, dedicated practitioners from Nelson Mandela Bay, that work or volunteer in ECD centres and grade R classrooms took part in our level two skills programme," remarks Early Inspiration MD, Dr Lauren Stretch. "Each underwent a stringent selection process and participated in a holistic programme to improve their skills to improve the development of children under their care."

Each

• attended a range of training modules
• received on-site visits
• had extensive evaluations
• mentorship sessions in their ECD centre
• and completed a portfolio of evidence which includes formative and summative assessment tasks, testing knowledge and understanding, as well as implementation of the skills learnt.

Early Inspiration’s intervention across Nelson Mandela Bay provided support and capacitation of ECD Centre principals and practitioners to keep them up to date on trends, strategies, policies and new opportunities for professional development.

Class and child assessments

Work didn't just end with assessing ECD centres. Early Inspiration evaluated children who attend the schools whose teachers participated in the programme to measure the development and direct benefits of the intervention. "We used a control group as a comparison mechanism, so we have a benchmark to compare the ‘norm' vs. Early Inspiration impacted-centres," adds Dr Stretch. "Provincially, the greatest element of growth in child during the course of the year for the children under the care of programme educators, was cognitive development. The results are a great reflection of the improvement in the development of the brain and an accurate reflection of the remarkable impact that quality, intentional intervention can have on young children."  

Home visit support programme

Through the child assessments, at-risk children were identified to provide one-on-one interventions which are child-specific and meets the identified need. Home visits adopt a non-centre based approach to intervention where education not only happens in the ECD centre but also that parents are capacitated on understanding their children's brain growth, needs and way of learning. This intervention provides additional support and offers parents training and development which aids their children. “The six-month home visit programme focusses on one-on-one support and stimulation to assist children in becoming developmentally-appropriate and achieve age-related goals," says Dr Stretch. Post-programme, the children who were at risk, made significant improvements with 79% of the children scoring between 81 and 100% at post-assessment.

For in-depth insight and further information, please review the report here.

Do4SA, a non-profit and catalyst for the promotion of humanitarian efforts in South Africa, is producing a monthly online publication, The Altruist. Designed to provide readers with information on innovative, sustainable solutions to local problems, The Altruist aims to inspire entrepreneurs to support humanitarian efforts in South Africa Each edition of The Altruist will feature innovative approaches used by charities, NGOs and individuals to uplift communities and individuals out of poverty.

“There are some amazing people and organisations out there doing life-changing work,” comments Asif Mohamed who heads-up Do4SA development. “But there isn’t a platform for their work to be shared with corporates who are looking for sustainable solutions that make a difference to invest their CSR budget in.” 

Focussing on uplifting people and communities out of poverty, The Altruist covers stories relating to food security, healthcare, education, early childhood development, women’s issues, adult education, highlights the work of social entrepreneurs and more.  “

We want to become the go-to publication for the philanthropist,” adds Mohamed. “Now we’re live, we cannot wait to hear from people across the country and discover the work that’s benefitting the lives of millions.” 

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