Insurance Staff Help Community

February 13 - AID/HIV has reached epidemic proportions in some communities in South Africa, with the Eastern Cape being an area badly hit by this disease.

Staff members of Alexander Forbes in Port Elizabeth have decided to reach out to the community and assist in whichever way possible to alleviate the burden of some of these AIDS victims and therefore went about seeking an initiative that they could support.

It wasn't long before the Alexander Forbes team learned about the Jongilanga Pre-school that assists the community by taking care of children and educating the parents with life skills.

The Alexander Forbes Community Trust project wanted to assist the initiative financially, but could not do so initially because it was not registered as a non-profit organization or the Department of Social Development.

The Port Elizabeth office decided that they would assist the Jongilanga Pre-School initiative to wade through the piles of forms and endless bureaucracy needed to register them so that they could start benefiting from outside assistance.

"This involved assisting with two protracted application processes requiring the completion of countless forms and submissions by the founder members - Miriam Mbekela and Nosipho Peter," explained the Central Functions Supervisor at Alexander Forbes Port Elizabeth, Mandy Marx. "Thereafter we helped the founders with the painstaking follow up process."

A year later, the initiative finally received the registrations and they could go about applying for funds from various groups.

Today - Friday 13th - will see Alexander Forbes hand over a check for R190,000 to Jongilanga Pre-School to assist it in its exceptional initiative.