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Shirley Ntimbane (left) and Magdalena Msiza, two of the girls that where part of the mentoring project.
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Residents at The Innovation Hub understand and appreciate the value of sharing knowledge to stimulate innovation. One of the resident companies has now taken that concept beyond business collaboration to help those in need who are trying to help themselves.
GIS Global Image, in association with Maluleke Luthuli & Associates and a group of generous women, is investing in three projects to help the less fortunate further their business interests. This includes mentoring young women, painting a room where support is given to children with AIDS, and helping a group of women in Soweto to develop mosaic patterns and distribute photographs of their work to art galleries.
The mentoring programme is primarily aimed at assisting young women to reach their full potential and is led by successful women who are interested in empowering future generations of women. The project focuses on 60 learners from Grades 10 and 12 and includes participation in the 'take a girl child to work' initiative to expose them to career opportunities and different career paths in the development field, such as Engineering, GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and Town Planning.
The second project supports Friends for Life, a community-based organisation in Alexandria that assists over 600 HIV positive adults and 300 Aids orphans and HIV positive children. Support groups and counseling sessions are offered to the families of HIV/AIDS sufferers, people who are infected and need treatment as well as the individuals who head up the households where AIDS orphans live - a large number of whom are young children themselves, and in other instances elderly women.
The project outcome will be to paint and decorate the drab, small office where these counseling sessions are held to create a place that will lift the spirits and inspire hope in difficult times.
A group of women in Soweto has seen an opportunity to benefit from the growing number of tourists visiting the Regina Mundi Catholic Church and Hector Petersen Memorials. They have taught themselves to create mosaic patterns using their own designs, sourcing their own materials and customers while selling their products from the church premises.
The GIS Global Image collaborative project will assist these women to develop their products further and find a wider market by contacting mosaic companies to start cooperative projects. They will also help with the sourcing of materials and the design and printing of mosaic patterns to scale to be used for production. They will also be assisted with sourcing market information and marketing the mosaic products.
According to Erina Otto of GIS Global Image, their inspiration to make a difference came from the saying that lighting someone else's candle takes nothing away from oneself. "Our combined efforts will require only a few hours of our time, while we have the opportunity to permanently change the lives of numerous people", she added.
Contact Erina Otto on +27 12 844 0660 for further information on any of these projects.
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