AfroCentric Health Group reopened the third schooling term with a day filled with activities as the staff volunteered their 67 minutes for Mandela Day by giving career advice, sanitary towels and painting the school facilities at Letsibogo Girls’ High School in Meadowlands.
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The organisation said they wanted to use the opportunity to align and open career perspective for a girl child.
Mpho Lukoto, Senior Manager for PR and reputation management and stakeholder relations at AfroCentric said,
“Today we are doing our part for Mandela day.
“For us it is important to be part of such initiatives like Mandela Day, it confirms our commitment to being a corporate citizen in South Africa and as a health care group we believe in transforming lives.”
Lukoto explained that part of their reason to choose a girl’s school was part of wanting to push the agenda of supporting and opening up career opportunities for girls in the township.
“We are passionate about supporting girls and mentoring them because in our country black women in particular are the hardest hit by poverty and unemployment.
“We believe by supporting them we are building them up for the future and giving them a chance to break the cycle of poverty. What we are doing here is part of a bigger picture,” said Lukoto.
The career session included discussions with people from the Afrocentric IT department, group marketing and human capital who touched on careers in the health space.
She added that they planned to build a strong lasting relationship with the institution, explaining that they will be looking at creating programmes and resources to the school.
“We still plan to open discussions with the school but we believe the opportunities are endless.
“We live in a country where young women are exposed to GBV, we want to be there to support and protect them.
“We want to support them in career guidance, women are the future of this country and if we start by supporting them from an early age we believe that we are building a future South Africa that’s going be different from what we see now,” she concluded.
The school principal, Ellen Mathopo said she hoped that learners would use the information to leverage themselves when choosing subjects and potential careers paths.
“The career guidance will have a great impact on our learners especially the grade nine’s as they are about to choose their subjects for the next grade.
“They will be able to choose appropriately and not find themselves wanting when they reach Grade 12,” she said.
The principal also added that the initiative came at the right time when they were faced with difficulties with providing sanitary towels for their learners.
“As a girl’s school, we were running short of sanitary towels. Last term we had girls who would request sanitary towels and it was becoming difficult,” she said.
“We were just about to contribute as a school towards buying them because we have learners who ordinarily would not have them at home and only get them at school, we feel privileged indeed.”
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