Airports Company South Africa, Cape Town International Airport (ACSA CTIA)’s leadership team and staff members volunteered not only 67 minutes of their time for Mandela Day but three hours to assist at the Delft Community Centre, the Nelson Mandela Peace Park.  The 20 managers spent the morning painting the Community Centre and assisting with the soup kitchen.  Other ACSA staff members joined the management team at 12noon to do their bit for a further three hours. The airport is also supporting almost 3000 school children in communities near the airport with new school shoes to the value of R700 000.

“We decided to assist a community near the airport for the day. Paint supplies were purchased to paint various areas inside and outside the centre to make it aesthetically pleasing to the children who visits the centre,” says Deborah Francis, ACSA CTIA’s acting Communications Manager. “Mandela Day resonates with our organisation’s overall CSI objectives and it also ties in well with CTIA’s outreach programmes which are implemented on an annual basis during winter. In conjunction with our Corporate Office and other airports in the ACSA family, we are donating 2805 pairs of school shoes worth R700 000 to children in five schools located in close proximity to the airport.  These will be delivered to the school before the end of July as part of our Mandela Day initiatives,” added Francis.

The Mandela Day initiative is one of many community initiatives we get involved in, our aim is to assist all schools and community projects within close proximity to the airport and we accomplish this through a rotational process.

“Our main focus is running our airport however our communities play a critical role and have a significant place in the company’s business strategy. So, as an airport operator, contributing toward the development and sustainability of our communities is very important, hence the work done at the Community Centre in Delft. Education is the foundation for the development of any community so providing school shoes for needy school children in our neighbouring communities is important, especially during the winter season in Cape Town. This has come at an opportune time when we are celebrating Mandela Day which in essence is about giving back to our communities”, Francis concluded.