Vodacom supports the United Nation’s global goals for sustainable development through free online access to education, career and health sites

To mark world sustainability week, Vodacom is playing its part in working towards a better tomorrow. Through the power of its network, Vodacom has pledged its support to the UN’s global goals for sustainable development by ensuring its customers have free online access to education, career and health websites. The network’s participation in this initiative speaks to four of the 17 UN global goals for sustainability in the fight against inequality and poverty. The four goals are;

• Good health and well-being
• Quality education
• Decent work and economic growth
• Sustainable cities and communities 

“Through our partnerships with government and communities, we have found more innovative ways through which mobile communication technologies can support financial inclusion, food security, health and access to education. We are happy to report that in each of these areas we have been able to make significant strides in improving the lives of our customers and the communities we operate in”, says Managing Executive for Product and Commercial Management, Zunaid Mahomed.

Over the years Vodacom has launched a number of zero-rated initiatives that have given South Africa’s access to free online sites like the education portal - e-school and the NXT LVL career jobs website as well as products and services that in turn contribute to sustainable economic, social and environment development. These include;

The Vodacom e-school, which is a partnership with the Department of Education, is a secure online learning content portal for grades 4 -12 learners. Through Vodacom’s e-school, learners who are Vodacom subscribers are able to access classroom content aligned to the school’s curriculum via their cell-phones, tablets or laptops. To date the portal has over 150 000 learners registered.

To remove the cost burden associated with searching for a job, in June this year, Vodacom partnered with South Africa’s leading and most reputable career websites to launch the NXT LVL zero rated career website. The zero rated website enables job seekers to browse job sites, upload their CV’s and apply for available positions free of charge when accessing Vodacom partner career sites. These career sites include; Careers24, PNet, JobMail, Career Jet, Giraffe, Career Junction, SA Learnerships and Indeed.
In the health space, Vodacom and Mezzanine have developed a real time mobile platform that allows healthcare professionals to utilise secure mobile devices to send treatment plans to patients, manage patient’s medical records and monitor the availability of medicine at the dispensaries. Furthermore – we have partnered with the Cancer Association of South Africa (CANSA) and the National Department of Health through its mobi-site B-Wise to give free-access to health information.
In partnership with Lumkani, Vodacom has implemented fire-detection devices in informal settlements. To prevent fires from ravaging these densely-populated communities, a device has been created that, if triggered, alerts all other fire-detection devices in a 60-metre radius, as well as an alarm that alerts its owners.

World sustainability week runs till the 24 September.