The sustainable success of the RBH business is inextricably linked to the successful sustainable development of Morafe. As a community–owned investment company, therefore, RBH needs to attend to issues of sustainable development in a more focused manner than regular companies.
RBH contributes to the sustainable development of the RBN in a number of ways:
RBH is directly involved in the area of sport and music through its subsidiary Royal Bafokeng Sports.
The guiding principles for RBH’s corporate social investments are similar to those used for commercial investments:
The RBH board approved a R10 million CSI budget for RBH for 2007.
The South African Institute for Entrepreneurship (SAIE) www.entrepreneurship.co.za is a non–profit organisation based in Cape Town which developed a programme for schools in the Bojanala Municipality. This was a R3.8 million programme to provide educators from Grade 2 – 12 with learning materials and skills to improve entrepreneurship education in the schools. The programme and training was implemented in 2006 with funding from Astrapak and JP Morgan. Since that time, SAIE has conducted annual monitoring and follow–up visits.
The RBH supports the Thuto Thebe Educational Fund which was founded by the Queen Mother of the RBN in honour of both her husband and firstborn son.
The Steve Kearney Education Trust has been established in honour of the company’s first chairman, Steve Kearney. The trust offers bursaries to first or second year students in the mining–related fields of study.
RBH facilitated a donation by its corporate partner, MB Technologies, to provide 45 computers to the Lebone II Independent School. An MB Technologies affiliated company has also donated computers and a printer to another RBN school.
The Black Tie Ensemble www.blackties.co.za conducted an outreach programme in 12 villages, bringing the vibrant sounds of opera to the RBN community.
Samba Soccer coaching clinics — RBH has sponsored soccer clinics in a number of RBN schools. To date the programme has involved about 3,500 school going kids between ages 6 and 14 years. This programme is on–going and will still be active in the RBN villages until December 2007.
“Bringing the World into the Mathematics and Science classroom” is a project initiated by the Royal Bafokeng Institute (“RBI”) to distribute computers and high tech presentation kits to selected mathematics and science teachers in the RBN schools. This equipment will enhance their teaching methods as well as improve the teachers’ own understanding of the subject matter. For 2007, equipment has been supplied to 5 maths and 2 science teachers. The 7 computers were donated by MB Technologies and RBH contributed funds for software and projectors.
In 2006, RBH engaged Greater Good SA (GGSA) www.GreaterGoodSA.co.za to identify the non governmental organizations (“NGOs”) and community based organizations (“CBOs”) that are active in the Bojanala district with the objective of finding groups and models that were successful and that could be encouraged to expand their operations in the RBN villages.
As a follow on of this work, RBH engaged GGSA to complete the compilation of a detailed database and audit of CBOs and NGOs that are active in the RBN villages. The RBN CBO audit includes an analysis of the needs of these organizations (institutional capacity building, regulation, coordination etc.). Based on these findings, GGSA and the RBA plan to develop a series of interventions to address these capacity issues over the medium term. These interventions will continue to be funded by RBH.
GGSA is conducting 2 day training programme for Rustenburg district NGOs and CBOs on fundraising in October 2007 which is being sponsored by RBH.
RBH will continue to assist the Royal Bafokeng Administration in the establishment of a network for the home based care community organizations. We have already had a first session with some 40 CBOs involved in home based care and some follow up meetings. The home based care network could be replicated with CBOs that are active in other sectors (e.g., women’s income generation).
RBH and SA Eagle support the Tapologo AIDS Hospice and the outreach and home based care programme managed by Tapologo. Tapologo is an integrated HIV/AIDS treatment and care programme focused on the Rustenburg area www.tapologo.org that is managed under the auspices of the Catholic Diocese of Rustenburg. In particular, SA Eagle is funding the expansion of its Home Based Care programme into 6 new RBN villages.
RBN Health Initiative: RBH funded strategic work that will feed into the development of a health policy for the RBN. RBH commissioned a consulting firm that specializes in health systems (called Health & Development Africa) to conduct a high level study of service delivery in the RBN villages and identify gaps and priorities. Based on this work and ongoing discussions with the RBA and the Department of Health, RBH is working with its partners to develop some initiatives that will accelerate and improve health service delivery.
Mobile library for RBN schools: The proposal put forward by RBI is to fund a truck, librarian and the purchase of primary school reading materials to be rotated between the 32 RBN primary schools.
Internet research facility: This facility is proposed by RBI and is to be established in the Bafokeng Plaza, close to the Phokeng library. It is primarily aimed at the young people in the community. It is intended as a careers guidance and internet research facility and will have some 60 networked computers with free internet access.
