28 March 2019
Cyril Ramaphosa Foundation celebrates its 15th anniversary this year.
Established as Shanduka Foundation in 2004, the corporate social investment arm of the Shanduka Group, the Foundation changed its name in 2015 following Cyril Ramaphosa’s divestment from the Shanduka Group.
Cyril Ramaphosa Foundation has had a meaningful impact on the people and communities in which it works.
As at April 2018, it had contributed over R343 million and leveraged an additional R913 million through its partner entities to effect real change in education and enterprise development, the focal areas of its work.
Education and enterprise development
Education, skills and work opportunities are where progress is most needed for individuals to lead decent lives. These are the key capabilities as measured by South Africa’s National Development Plan (NDP).
In line with these, education and enterprise development are strategic foci for the Foundation.
Progress here would be the most direct means of improving the quality of life for South Africa’s people and promote the Foundation’s purpose to develop an inclusive and empowered society.
Education
In education, the Foundation implements a Whole School Development model through its partner entity, Adopt-a-School.
In education, the Foundation implements a Whole School Development model through its partner entity, Adopt-a-School.
Together with private sector support, it is active at 223 disadvantaged schools to improve their governance, academic, infrastructural, social and security environments.
A further 251 schools are worked at through KST, the Foundation’s partnership with Kagiso Trust that leverages the best practices of each organisation’s Whole School Development programmes.
The Foundation’s Cyril Ramaphosa Education Trust (CRET) further provides bursaries for tertiary study and holistic support for disadvantaged students, as well as work experience opportunities for young adults.
Education is seen as critical to the development and self-fulfillment of people, including to function in society, earn livelihoods and contribute to social, economic and psychological wellbeing, and is significant in interrupting the cycle of poverty.
SMEs and Black Umbrellas
Access to quality education does not guarantee employment, because job opportunities in a challenged economy are limited. The need to create work opportunities is an imperative that the Foundation addresses through its development of SMEs.
The Foundation’s partner entity, Black Umbrellas, develops small- and medium-enterprises (SMEs) through a nationwide incubation programme. It partners with the private sector, government and civil society to address the low levels of entrepreneurship and high failure rate of 100% black-owned emerging businesses in South Africa.
Since inception in 2009, over 11 000 jobs have been created through Black Umbrellas’ 1 458 SME clients.
An inclusive and empowered society
While everyone has the constitutional right to basic and further education in South Africa, the fulfilment of this right is stymied by poor standards and facilities for the poor and marginalised and by factors of social and economic inequality and exclusion.
This makes education and its relationship to employment a human rights issue, at least to the extent that they are impacted on by other socio-economic, “second generation”, human rights.
For Cyril Ramaphosa Foundation, overcoming unemployment, poverty and inequality through education and SME growth and development, both promotes, and is dependent on, an inclusive and empowered society in which all people fully and equally enjoy all human rights and freedoms.
