Cape Town – The Community Chest Impumelelo Social Innovations Awards last night celebrated the work of organisations that have uplifted communities.
The ceremony at the Artscape recognised the organisations and provided mentorship opportunities.
The awards were previously known as the Community Chest Awards, but have been rebranded after a recent merger between the Community Chest of the Western Cape and the Impumelelo Social Innovation Centre.
Among the winners was Iyeza, a Khayelitsha-based company which produces bicycle carrier boxes to transport medication at the required temperatures. It was born out of founder Sizwe Nzima’s difficulties collecting his grandmother’s medication. Iyeza began with one bicycle and now has 6000 clients and eight employees.
Another winner was FoodForward SA, which was created with the aim of reducing hunger, and redistributes surplus food to those in need. To date, it has provided 17.6million meals to their 250000 beneficiaries at the cost of 79c per meal.
Lalela, a company providing educational art resources to youth in impoverished communities, was also honoured.
Also recognised was Gradesmatch, a company using advanced analytics and big data to provide a career guidance platform to public schools.
“We applaud the excellent work these deserving organisations have been doing in their community in line with Community Chest’s four core values: facilitating social change within health, education, income-generation and community development,” said Community Chest of the Western Cape chief executive Lorenzo Davids.