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Vodacom Foundation

Home | About us | Vodacom Foundation

The Vodacom Foundation is the Corporate Social Investment (CSI) arm of Vodacom South Africa.

The Foundation utilises a portion of Vodacom South Africa’s profit to empower society, using its core capabilities in technological innovations.

Launched in 1999, the Vodacom Foundation (the Foundation), has been contributing to societal development by promoting education and gender empowerment. To drive sustainable development in South Africa, the Foundation has partnered with reputable organisations to grant over R1.6 billion towards various programmes that have transformed ordinary people’s lives.

Vodacom believes that digital technologies can address some of the country’s most pressing humanitarian challenges and our responsibility is to utilise our technological resources and prowess to mobilise social change to improve people’s lives today, build a better tomorrow and enable sustained positive social outcomes.

Evolution of Vodacom Foundation

The Foundation has evolved from being a charitable entity to being a developmental and strategic entity that drives socio-economic transformation. The Foundation is also taking lead providing ICT support in Corporate Social Investment (CSI) provisioning to ECDs, schools, communities and organisations.

We utilize our innovative mobile technology to enable social change largely focusing on Education and Gender Empowerment.


Guided by the National Development Plan and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Foundation is positioning Vodacom as a purpose led organisation that supports government socio-economic transformation programs.

Our positive evolution is evident in the consecutive 7-year rating as the top CSI company as voted by other corporates and the top CSI company in the last year as voted by NPOs.


Vodacom Programme Strategic Objectives

Education ecosystem, focusing on all education levels – from early childhood development (ECD) to schools and adult education. This support encompasses to learners, teachers, parents and communities, enhancing tech-based learning by providing computer centres and devices. Upgrading infrastructure, decommissioning pit latrines, providing psychosocial support to learners as well as encouraging sustainable food security by providing food gardens.


The Foundation's Education Ecosystem

Early Childhood Development Centres (ECDs)

Over the past five years, Vodacom has identified and supported 27 ECDs. Assistance in terms of building and painting, fixing ablution facilities, decommissioning of pit latrines, improving security and providing ICT equipment in the form of tablets, TV, teacher laptop and educational equipment as well as a mobile library was given to all ECD centres. This support gives the learners access to technology and content that they would otherwise not have. The upgrades to the ECD centres also allows the owners to provide a better environment for learning and by so doing increases their chances of attracting more learners and more income. Some of the ECDs also receive support from Vodacom in the form of employee volunteerism, where the volunteers will work with the ECD practitioners and learners in how to use utilise the technology.

Schools of Excellence:
The Vodacom Foundation supports 25 schools from the 2598 supported schools to form part of an education ecosystem, the 25 schools are referred to as Schools of Excellence. The concept of schools of excellence is framed and aligned to the education definition that view these as schools that promote and support academic excellence thus enabling quality education for the previously disadvantaged communities. Within the SOE, the Foundation does not only focus on ICT provisioning but it provides a holistic support that encompasses infrastructure, partnerships, community involvement, provisioning of government approved e-learning content and teacher support. In particular, Vodacom has contributed the following to the 25 schools of excellence:

  • A fully equipped, connected computer centre
  • Upgrades to the infrastructure, replacing broken windows and doors, fixing collapsing ceilings
  • Eradicating the pit latrines and replacing it with appropriate ablution facilities.
  • Upgrades to the security of the school, this includes installing a strong room in all the schools.
  • Each school has two ICT coordinators that provide technological support to learners and teachers.
  • Each school also has a psychosocial support professional to assist learners with violence and bullying.

Community Hubs (Teacher Centres)
These are Vodacom supported community ICT centres and so far, more than 3200 female farmers have been trained in these centres. These centres are used by the Department of Basic Education to provide teacher training but it is also used by community members who need to access the internet.

Youth Academy
There are 10 Youth Academy centres across the country. Theses academies host accredited Technology programmes for out of school youth who were not able to go to university. Since inception, more than 1500 young people have been trained.

ICT Coordinators In order to support the graduates from the Youth Academy centres, Vodacom recruits and places some of them at the Schools of Excellence, the ECDs and the Vodacom supported NPOs. The purpose is to assist these institutions/organisations with technology but also to provide the volunteers with valuable work experience. We currently have 99 ICT coordinators across the country.

Psychosocial support
We have 36 psycho-social support workers placed at 25 of our schools of excellence. These professionals assist learners and educators in dealing with issues of bullying, gender-based violence and other psycho-social issues. More than 26000 learners in over 42 schools have been reached so far

Gender Empowerment

Gender Based-violence programme
The scourge of gender-based violence (GBV) is pervasive in South Africa. According to Stats SA the number of women experiencing violence is five times higher than the global statistics. Vodacom’s approach to GBV focuses on prevention, response and victim empowerment.

Prevention: Launched the Bright Sky mobile app in 2020. The zero-rated Bright Sky app continues to assist people to understand GBV as well as access support and help.

Response: In 2021, Vodacom placed 10 psycho-social support professionals to assist educators and learners deal with issues of violence, bullying and GBV in schools. In 2024, we are sitting on 36 professionals in all provinces and we have reached more than 26 000 learners across 42 schools.

Empowerment: Vodacom Foundation empowers survivors of violence by providing ICT training to shelters across the country. To date more than 1500 women have been trained.

ICT in Agriculture

Agriculture is a knowledge-intensive field, with new technologies emerging every day, from drones and sensor technology to climate-smart agriculture, which all improve productivity. Women need to be empowered through technology if they want to start competing in this commercial space and that is exactly what the Foundation’s ICT in Agriculture programme is addressing.

Implemented in partnership with UN Women and South African Women in Farming (SAWIF), the programme introduces women farmers to technology enabling them to communicate with one another, access information about the farming value chain, financial solutions and potential buyers.

The programme has two phases – appropriate digital literacy training for the female farmers and introduction of the Connected Farmer App. Since launching in 2018, the programme has trained more than 3200 women farmers on digital literacy and relevant ICT modules.

Youth Development Programme

Launched in 2017, the programme recruits young unemployed graduates to volunteer for a year. The volunteers are recruited from the Vodacom Youth Academy programme and placed at Vodacom supported Non Profit Organisations (NPOs), Schools of Excellence, and Teacher Centres. The purpose of the placements is to transfer ICT skills to NPOs, educators and learners, to increase the digital literacy among these stakeholders and the school population. Currently we have 99 ICT volunteers placed in ECDs, Schools and NPOs.

Volunteering

Employee volunteerism is an important way in which Vodacom gives back to communities. In the last year employees engaged in various volunteering activities across the country. Vodacom is currently number one on the For Good platform, which is a platform that manages staff engagements for several big corporates. Employee volunteering at Vodacom sits at 24% which is above the 15% benchmark in corporate volunteering.

Payroll Giving

Launched in 2010, the initiative is a donations mechanism for employees to give any amount of their choice deducted from their salary monthly and paid directly to their chosen charity. The Foundation matches contributions with 50c for every R1. Since 2016, employees have contributed more than R400 000 every year.

Local foundations

Lesotho

Vodacom Lesotho cares deeply about the community in which it operates. The company’s social responsibility investments and partnerships are in health, education, sports and community development.

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Mozambique

Vodacom Mozambique’s corporate social investments are focused on education, health, safety and security. The company collaborates with select partners, NGOs and communities to execute approved projects. Find out more about what we’ve been doing in our latest sustainability report.

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Tanzania

Vodacom Tanzania established its Foundation in July 2006 to give back to communities and improve the lives of Tanzanians. The Foundation’s mission is to enrich the lives of communities through caring partnerships in education, health, economic empowerment and social welfare.

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DRC

Vodacom Foundation DRC’s vision is to contribute towards a prosperous country in which people’s lives are transformed through the use of mobile technologies to address social and economic issues. Find out more about what we’ve been doing in our latest sustainability report.