FLSmidth's local Corporate Social Investment (CSI) programme has entered its second year as a fully-fledged programme in its own right, functioning as an integral part of the company's South African operations.
"As legislative and business environments have evolved, CSI has become increasingly entrenched in our corporate philosophy, both in South Africa and globally," Alistair Calver, FLSmidth's sales and marketing director, who heads up the CSI team, says. "Our investment in a number of initiatives in previous years was made on an ad hoc basis until the end of 2009, when we formalised our CSI activities into a structured programme, driven by a dedicated team and funded by specifically allocated resources.
"Our formal CSI programme, launched in early 2010, focuses on Socio-economic Development and Enterprise Development initiatives. In allocating funds and identifying worthy recipients, the CSI team has been guided by a firm commitment to developing people through education, training and mentorship to build the much needed skills for sustainability of the engineering industry into the future."
"We also seek to assist communities in need - a critically important intervention in South Africa's current economic situation. In this arena we focus on uplifting economically disadvantaged communities in the project areas in which we are involved with customers," he says
During 2010 FLSmidth invested in two specific socio-economic initiatives. The first comprised a donation of R300 000 to the Nkomazi Community Trust, an NGO positioned specifically to uplift orphans and vulnerable children living in the Nkomazi district in Mpumalanga, South Africa.
(From left: Raizcorp bursars, Siphiwo Shabangu; Stanford Mokgonyana; Elwyn Pitt; Snowie Materra and Zandile Sandlana, pictured with FL Smidth's Alistair Calver and Stephan Kruger.)
The second initiative is a three-year commitment to donate R300 000 annually to Sekolo Sa Borokgo in Randburg, a non-profit independent high school, registered with the Gauteng Department of Education, specialising in developing learners from disadvantaged backgrounds to ultimately produce successful matriculants competent in English, Maths and Science. The FLSmidth donation is funding the salary of the school's head of mathematics.
The company allocated substantial resources to two highly successful Enterprise Development initiatives during 2010. The first is a contribution of R1,1-million/year for three years to privately run business incubator Raizcorp's Competitive Enterprise Development programme. FLSmidth's donation is supporting five entrepreneurs being mentored through this innovative programme.
The second initiative, which closed out in April 2011, was undertaken in co-operation with Great Basin Gold, one of FLSmidth's customers. Great Basin Gold requires its suppliers to participate in a CSI activity at its operations and FLSmidth chose to contribute R700 000 to the Burnstone Development Trust.
"The Trust focuses on funding initiatives that are aimed at empowering the greater Balfour community in Mpumalanga where the Burnstone mine is located," Calver says. "We therefore approached the Trust with a suggestion to run an entrepreneur development programme within the local community. We brought in Deloitte Consulting, which has a division specialising in Enterprise Development, to run the ‘FLSmidth Enterprise Development Project' over a period of six weeks for 28 members of the community. The focus was on empowering these entrepreneurs with basic business skills.
"We expected a group of young people, but were thrilled to find that the mix of successful candidates included many older people who have been running SMMEs for some time and who needed these new skills to take their businesses to the next level."
To ensure the sustainability of the programme outcomes, FLSmidth has engaged Deloitte to carry out monthly support follow-ups with the 28 successful candidates who completed the programme, for a further period of six months. "Many of these entrepreneurs will become direct and indirect suppliers to the mine," Calver says, "and we believe they will ultimately realise their vision of transforming Balfour from an agricultural centre into an important mining hub."
FLSmidth recently acquired Roymec Materials Handling to form a new empowered entity, FLSmidth Roymec, which also has meaningful CSI initiatives in place. Calver says these projects will springboard the company's future CSI activities to even greater heights. In addition to the primary CSI thrusts, the company has implemented a formal bursary scheme for a number of students currently enrolled at university and also sponsors its own employees' further education and development via internal learnerships.
[Pic 01 jpg] From left: Raizcorp bursars, Siphiwo Shabangu; Stanford Mokgonyana; Elwyn Pitt; Snowie Materra and Zandile Sandlana, pictured with FL Smidth's Alistair Calver and Stephan Kruger.
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