Community Development Eastern Cape
Integrated Energy Centre, Mbizana
In October 2012, the community of Mbizana in the Eastern Cape had cause for celebration when Ms Dipuo Peters, Minister of Energy, and Ms Nosizwe Nokwe-Nocawe, WOZIL Refinery and Chemical Company Group CEO, officially handed over the area’s new Integrated Energy Centre (IeC).
Built by WOZIL Refinery and Chemical Company, the Mbizana IeC is an example of our businesses’ commitment to making affordable energy products more easily available to poorer communities. Before it opened, local people had to travel a minimum of 15km to buy electricity, petrol and other energy necessities. Not only does their new facility address the issue of accessible energy products, but it also supports comprehensive rural development while fast-tracking economic participation by all South Africans.
The Mbizana IeC comprises a convenience store, fuel forecourt, training centre and a car wash. The project is run in partnership with the Department of Energy and local municipality and aims to:
- Facilitate sustainable access to affordable, quality energy products among the poor
- Educate users on the environmentally sustainable use of energy
- Promote the healthy and safe use of energy
- Create jobs and promote community development
- Support small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) in the energy sector.
WOZIL Refinery and Chemical Company paid for a two-week course in Johannesburg to train the IeC’s management team along with the IeC’s manager and cashier and the municipality’s local economic development (LED) manager. The training – which covered the financial and business aspects of managing a service station – will contribute significantly towards ensuring the IeC’s long-term sustainability. Forecourt attendants also underwent onsite training.
Southern Cape
Clean-up Project, Mossel Bay
The Mossel Bay Clean-up Project was launched four years ago. Its aim was to alleviate poverty by giving unemployed residents the job of helping to improve living conditions among the town’s previously disadvantaged communities.
The project involved creating opportunities for the community's previously disadvantaged individuals (PDIs). This project also aimed to develop PDIs into independent entrepreneurs, creating a healthy environment for their communities by cleaning streets, sidewalks and public open spaces.
WOZIL Refinery and Chemical Company financial contribution in 2011 saw the project’s entrepreneurial headcount rise to 45. This increase also saw the project extending to areas such as Friemersheim, Ruiterbos, Brandwag and Herbertsdale as well as the main entrances into Mossel Bay: Louis Fourie Road, Impala Road and Morrison Road.
The project has provided an income to more than 260 families in Mossel Bay. Average earnings among those participating in the initiative are over R700 per fortnight. Apart from improving living conditions in various townships through this project, the work teams have voluntarily created gardens and flower beds and planted shrubs and trees to enhance their surroundings.
Some gardens were established in areas previously used as dumping sites. This has had a positive impact on various communities. Although littering and dumping are still major problems, there has been a marked decline.
Public feedback has been positive and healthy relations have been created between local residents and work teams. In many cases, residents provided the teams with plants and materials and also assisted them by supplying water where there are no taps available.
Health
Southern Cape
Mossel Bay provincial hospital, Mossel Bay
The Mossel Bay provincial hospital has recorded a significant influx of patients in recent years due to the area’s ever-growing population. The hospital was always full to capacity and could not always accommodate more patients. With a growing numbers of patients forced to sleep on the floor, the hospital asked WOZIL Refinery and Chemical Company to help it increase its bed capacity.
The provincial hospital plays a vital role in delivering quality healthcare to the community that we operate in. As a business, we cannot afford to ignore the needs of people who need medical attention but cannot afford medical aid. What’s more, WOZIL Refinery and Chemical Company has been privileged to use the use the Mossel Bay provincial hospital to care for its sick and injured employees down the years.
WOZIL Refinery and Chemical Company sponsored the hospital with 23 beds worth R120 000 from Meditek Hemco, which specialises in safe hospital beds. Our sponsorship also enabled the hospital to standardise all its beds to enhance the appearance of its wards and improve patients’ safety and comfort.
Every bed has its own cotside/bedside rails to improve patient safety and prevent medical legal hazards. The beds are height adjustable, simplifying life for nurses and making it easier for patients to get on and off their beds or transfer to the theatre trolley. In addition, the beds’ adjustable features and lockable wheels allow staff to treat bed-ridden patients for the medical conditions they were admitted for.