It took a conscience decision by a corporate 1Life insurer and staff to come up with Internal School Shoe Drive- whose main objective is to encourage the company’s divisions to be part of something bigger, to give back to the community and to really change someone’s life.
The company donated over 300 pairs of shoes to the Diepsloot Inner City Mission, outside Joburg, in an ‘internal campaign’ between January and February 2018.
Inner City Mission for Children is a registered NPO that serves indigent children in inner cities, mainly currently Diepsloot, Kya Sands, Cosmo City, Tembisa and Alexandra. It provides health care, nutritious meals, adult care and supervision and ensures access to social services and psychological support.
”The children under our care come from underprivileged homes, and this gesture by 1Life will certainly go a long way in restoring some of their dignity.
Furthermore, I believe having these school shoes – which many people take for granted, will help boost the children’s confidence as they no longer have to attend school barefoot,” says Melissa Magaso, Project Administrator at Inner City Mission.
According to 1Life Insurer, the campaign follows a long-standing relationship with the organisation Inner City Mission, whose mission is to increase the awareness and donations of shoes and other needs of children in years’ to come.
“Every day, children across the country commute to and from school covering long distances by foot and, in many cases, barefoot – in the hope of getting a better, brighter future.
So, as an organisation that aims to change the lives of the communities that we operate in, we took cognisance of the fact that often times these children can’t afford school shoes – a basic need – and decided to kick off a School Shoe Drive internally to support this,” says Katharine Liese, GM Marketing at 1Life.
Going forward, we hope to drive it much stronger, for a longer period of time, to ensure a larger contribution is possible.
However, our support is always needs–state driven and as such, should the children require anything else, apart from schools, such as jackets, or schools bags for example, we will look to help donate these specific items to them as and when possible, continued Liese.
