2010 Finalists embody spirit of awards

Finalists

Corner Shop to Big Business Makers

• Maria Nthuseng Lephoto is the manager of the largest abattoir on the African continent. Having worked up through the ranks of a male-dominated industry to take charge of a multi-million operation, the business she runs is a benchmark of quality for the South African beef industry and continues to create many employment opportunities for the local community of Balfour.
  
• Lucilla Booyzen is the woman who launched South African Fashion Week (SAFW), the first independent showcase for the country's fashion designers and she has contributed substantially to the growth and future of the South African fashion industry locally and abroad. She has developed a distinctive South African design ethos and culture through SAFW, which now also incorporates a number of initiatives to encourage skills transfer, foster new partnerships and support empowerment.
  
• Brenda Horne-Ferreira founded the first ever public-private membership organisation, the Maputo Corridor Logistics Initiative (MCLI) as a Sec. 21 non-profit organisation through which the constraints of the Maputo Development Corridor are addressed. She got private sector users and service providers in South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland to work together to ensure the corridor becomes the first choice for the regions importers and exporters and solicited strong political support and government cooperation. She has ensured excellent corporate governance with clean audits.

Good Neighbours

(L - R): Colleen Naidoo, Eunice Patiwe and Lesley Ann van Selm

• Colleen Naidoo is a mother who has opened her heart and house over the past 20 years to give a home and a future to hundreds of abandoned, abused and neglected children. From a very young age she has reached out to the vulnerable in the Beacon Valley community in Mitchell's Plain and eventually established Colleen's Place of Hope in 1990, giving a home to children from desperate circumstances arriving on her doorstep via the police or the community.

• Eunice Patiwe has set a number of programmes and processes in place for her community which others in South Africa can emulate to encourage individuals to fight crime and violence on all fronts to secure a better future for South Africa. Her action against crime has earned her the respect of the Langa community, who fondly refer to her as the "Police Lady."
  
• Lesley Ann van Selm founded the Khulisa Crime Prevention Initiative 13 years ago using African stories to instil morals among offenders. She has developed the concept into a series of crime prevention and community development interventions aimed at offenders in prisons, ex-offenders and at-risk youth and vulnerable children in communities to restore their self esteem, prevent crime and reduce recidivism, make restitution, and offer socially responsible alternatives to gangs, drugs and crime. She has built a strong team of people of whom 94% are women to manage the company. Thousands of South Africans have turned their lives around as a result of their involvement with Khulisa.

Educators

• Cwengi Myeni is a nursing sister who recognised the need to support the grandmothers of the Valley of a Thousand Hills in KwaZulu Natal. As a result of the devastation of HIV/Aids these elderly women have been left to raise their grandchildren with little or no economic and social resources. It all started when she was invited by the Stephen Lewis Foundation to present the plight of these grandmothers at the 2006 World Aids Conference in Toronto. She presented a model for Grandmother Support Groups, received overwhelming support and on her return she started the project. It has grown today to at least 15 groups with more than 500 grannies making the lives and future of thousands of HIV/Aids orphans better.
  
• Jackie Gallagher is the founder and GM of the Sparrow Schools Educational Trust. Having started 20 years ago with a Saturday class of four learners, the initiative has grown to an organisation that has helped thousands of children prejudiced by the educational policies of the apartheid government to better their education and skills for a brighter future. Today the Sparrow Schools and Educational Trust are two interconnected projects catering for around 600 children and youth from impoverished communities at a time, employing 82 staff members at the Foundation School in Melville and the Sparrow Combined Vocational Training Centre in Sophiatown.
  
• Thabi Shange has devoted her life for more than 30 years to rural development to better the future for all South Africans. She is an initiator who has founded and co-founded a number of community based and women organisations including the Philisisizwe group. Others in which she has been involved include the Nyandeni Association, Intuthuko yaMangwane, Emvokweni Development Trust (land reform) Nonsobo Development Trust (mining community) and many others in KwaZulu Natal. She has assisted in the development of trading companies for these rural associations so that they could become part of the mainstream business community to achieve self-determination, self-reliance and sustainability.

Youth Movers

(L - R): Khanyisile Motsa, Jacqueline Michael and Bulelwa Hewitt

• Bulelwa Hewitt has co-founded the first South African street children organisation run by former street children and experienced social workers. Since starting Umthombo Street Children Action, a Sec. 21 non-profit organisation, in Durban six years ago this 29-year-old former street child has transformed the lives of thousands of children living on the streets destined for a life of crime and has given them hope for their future. With Umthombo Street Children Action, Hewitt has established an internationally recognised model to successfully rescue these children and re-integrate them into society.
  
• Khanyisile Motsa founded the Berea-Hillbrow Home of Hope 10 years ago and has since touched the lives of more than 8000 street children who have had the opportunity to get their childhood back and have the prospect of becoming responsible citizens shaping the future of South Africa. She has also formed support and peer groups to monitor and support the street girls who in many instances were forced into prostitution or have been victims of child labour and trafficking.
  
• Jacqui Michael, as director of the Johannesburg Parent and Child Counselling Centre and Director of the Child (JPCCC) and Youth Care Agency for Development (CYCAD), manages and initiates cross-cultural projects, which impact on systems which protect and develop children and families at risk. The driving principle of her work is that every child has a right to have a family in whatever form, and the ultimate goal is that children are kept out of institutions wherever possible and given the benefit of parenting and family.

Health Care-Givers

(L - R): Frances Hartley, Esme Singleton and Jane Munyadziwa Dzebu

• Esme Singleton is a professional nurse who has improved the quality of life of hundreds of people infected or affected by HIV/AIDS for the past three years in the rural town of Molteno, part of the smallest municipality in the Eastern Cape, Inkwanca. The work done by Singleton and her team at the Molteno Clinic is an example of how a well-functioning healthcare facility can bring strategic solutions and relief not only now but in the future in the fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Three years ago only 30 patients in the hospital were on Anti-Retroviral (ARV) treatment and adherence to treatment was low but today 551 patients are on the programme and their lives has dramatically improved.
  
• Frances Hartley is a grandmother who has reached out to thousands of workers associated with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu); she single-handedly raised the level of consciousness of many Cosatu activists to understand the need for more deliberate action in responding to HIV/Aids and played a central role in training and mentoring others.
  
• Sister Jane Munyadziwa Dzebu is a dedicated professional nurse who has rekindled hope for healing while delivering world-class care for women who are treated for gynaecological cancers at the Charlotte Maxeke-Johannesburg Hospital. She heads the gynaecology cold case intake ward at this state hospital which offers expertise and a multi-disciplinary approach as a tertiary service to patients with complex conditions that can't be treated elsewhere. Her work in this ward is an example of how South Africa's health facilities can be restored to formidable levels in the public sector.