G7 Renewable Energies Mandela Day at SA Children’s Home

The Annual Mandela Day on 18 July reminds us of the memory of Nelson Mandela, and G7 employees expressed a desire to honour the legacy of Madiba in a meaningful way. A proposal was tabled to support the South African Children’s Home which is located near G7 in the City of Cape Town. The SA Children’s Home was the first welfare institution established in South Africa in 1808. For over 200 years, the Children’s Home continues its care of vulnerable children by providing a secure, friendly, homely environment for its family of 44 boys and girls between the ages 6-18 years.

The children in the home come from dire social and disadvantaged backgrounds and are placed in the Home through the Children's court, as they were found to be living in circumstances that were detrimental to their physical, emotional and psychological well-being.

At SA Children’s Home the children are provided with healthy and nutritious meals, a safe and nurturing environment, and numerous extramural activities. The children are enrolled at 14 different schools in and around Cape Town and as far as Milnerton according to the individual child’s home language, culture, abilities, and interest.

The SA Children’s home always have an urgent need for any form of donations, but G7 decided to fill another gap which are prevalent in the lives of many young people, namely "career counselling".

Each G7 employee pledged to support the home in their personal capacity, and the team arranged a virtual educational talk for the senior students. G7 team members spoke about their own career journeys and the students could ask questions about renewable energy, the type of careers available after school, how to apply at a tertiary institution such as University or Technikon, how to apply for bursaries, or what to do about shyness!

Nicolas Rolland, Director at G7 said: “We believe in the empowerment of youth. G7 has had more than 33 successful internships with many interns now fully-fledged members of our team. We hope that the time we spent with these young people will bear fruit in the long run. It was a great pleasure for our team to meet the youngsters”.