Community

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The group's social responsibility initiatives (including the labour-sending areas) are managed by the AngloGold Ashanti Fund. The fund is directed by a Board of Trustees chaired by the AngloGold Ashanti Managing Secretary, and is managed by Tshikululu Social Investments, a non-profit management company which is a specialist corporate donor support agency.

The trustees of the fund consider many proposals each year. Certain criteria are used to assist in making decisions: key among these are the sector into which a particular project falls, the location of the beneficiaries and the sustainability of the venture. The fund focuses on funding education, health, arts and culture projects.

In 2005 more than R18 million was distributed to a wide range of projects.

Since its establishment more than seven years* ago, the fund has concentrated on education, believing that support given here has the most potential to make a real difference to the lives of individuals and their communities. In 2005, 60% of the funding available went to education. Other fields to which the fund gives priority are those of welfare and development, HIV/AIDS, health and skills training/job creation and last year's spending reflects this (see chart below). (*Prior to the establishment of AngloGold in 1998 the operations that make up AngloGold had made significant contributions every year to the Anglo American and De Beers Chairman's Fund.)

Another guiding principle is to focus on the areas where the company has operations and the regions from which it draws large numbers of employees (and where the families of many of those employees live). With three mines near Carletonville and four near Klerksdorp, projects in the provinces of Gauteng (49%) and North West (19%) were significant beneficiaries. Employees who do not reside near AngloGold Ashanti operations come primarily from the Eastern Cape and northern KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, and from Lesotho and Mozambique beyond the borders of the country, and so most of the remaining funding (32%) was distributed in these areas.

Regarding the issue of sustainability, the trustees have to ensure that the project will be sustainable and benefit the recipients and their communities in the long term. The level of community participation and ownership is a crucial factor in ensuring this (as is the degree of involvement by the relevant public sector bodies).

Two major projects of the past year serve to illustrate these criteria. These are the second phase of building at the Boiteko School for the Severely Handicapped in Khutsong near Carletonville and Inyatelo Public School in Kanana near Klerksdorp.

The AngloGold Ashanti Fund first became involved in Boiteko - a Sotho word meaning ‘we are trying very hard' - in 1999. The school was already in existence but housed in the backyard of a municipal property. The fund was approached by the school's governing body with a request for support to build proper premises. An amount of R1.8 million was granted for phase one of the project during which eight classrooms, ablution facilities, a kitchen/workshop and a multi-purpose hall were built. The official opening took place in mid-2000.

It was recognised at the time that more accommodation would be necessary. The school has an enrolment of 180 severely mentally handicapped and 20 profoundly handicapped children and young adults. They range in age from three to 21. People who are severely handicapped require the assistance of others for every aspect of their daily lives. Their physical activities are greatly compromised as is their capacity for being educated. Those who are profoundly handicapped have a mental age of under a year; they are unable to talk; and they cannot benefit from any formal education.

In 2003, the fund approved the second phase of the building programme which provided for another block of eight classrooms, ablution facilities and a therapy centre for occupational therapy and physiotherapy. The fund made a grant of R2.65 million - to cover this phase and a third phase - and the Gauteng Department of Education contributed R1 million.

In the first phase, the Gauteng Department of Education had been fully consulted and had facilitated the provision of land for the school. The second phase, which was completed in 2005, marked the start of a real partnership between the fund and the department.

The manager of the fund, Sipho Mahlangu, is convinced that this type of constructive private-public partnership ensures the viability of a project. Given that Boiteko is a special needs school, government participation goes beyond the Department of Education. It includes the Department of Health which takes responsibility for the provision of a social worker, an occupational therapist and a physiotherapist, and the Department of Social Services which administers the children's welfare grants.

The fund, together with the school governing body, has worked particularly closely with all three departments in the planning of phase three which is the building of a centre for the profoundly handicapped. From the time that the fund was first approached in 1999 it was decided that this group needed particular attention. It is possible, with the right equipment, aid and sufficient staff, to teach such children some measure of independence such as teaching them to move and to feed themselves.

Since a centre for the profoundly handicapped has never been built before in South Africa, the planning has been an intensive process in which the three departments have been involved with the fund. The Department of Education has contributed a further R500,000 towards this centre and building will start in early 2006.

With its support for the three building phases and a grant of some R95,000 for the training of caregivers, the AngloGold Ashanti Fund has made an investment of R5.4 million in Boiteko. This makes it one of the fund's biggest projects to date.

As with Boiteko, AngloGold Ashanti has a long association with the Inyatelo Public School which was established in 1983 by a group of mineworkers who wanted to ensure that Xhosa-speaking children in the Kanana area had access to education in their mother tongue. What was then the company's Vaal Reefs mine (now known as the Vaal River operations) made premises available and gave assistance when the primary school (from Grades 0 to 7) moved to a larger and better equipped building in 1990.

The building can accommodate 840 children but in the past decade there had been a significant increase in enrolments and Inyatelo now has 1,400 learners. This left the school's governing body with no option but to implement a system of ‘platooning' which splits the children into two groups with the first attending classes until late morning and the second starting at midday. Platooning is, however, a satisfactory arrangement since it has an effect on the spirit and unity of a school.

At Inyatelo it also placed a considerable burden on the 40 teachers who have to do double duty. More seriously, it has made the children who start their schooling in the afternoon vulnerable since they are left on their own at home when their parents leave for work. The school turned to the AngloGold Ashanti Fund for assistance and a grant of R2.5 million was made for an upgrading that includes the construction of 11 classrooms, office space and an ablution block. The contractors moved on site in August 2005 and the project was scheduled for completion by February 2006.

The chairperson of the governing body, Anderson Mogadla, now retired from AngloGold Ashanti, left the Eastern Cape 40 years ago and made Kanana his home. He was involved in the establishment of Inyatelo - the first Xhosa-medium school to be built in the area - and sums up its importance to his family by saying it made it possible for all his children and grandchildren to receive their education in their mother tongue.

Although the North West Education Department is not providing any financial assistance for the expansion of Inyatelo, representatives sit on the steering committee and there has been ongoing consultation. For the project to be successful, however, it is important that there is a substantial increase in the number of teachers and discussions are being held with the department in this regard.

Sipho Mahlangu explains that the AngloGold Ashanti Fund is changing its focus from supporting many small projects (some with amounts around the R50,000 mark) to concentrating on larger ventures that will have a more significant impact on the regions in which they are located. Inyatelo and Boiteko illustrate this trend as well as the increasing importance being attached to initiatives that are located in areas close to AngloGold Ashanti operations where many employees and their families live. Finally, they illustrate the fund's concern to work with government to secure the long-term future of projects.