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.
|