As the Children’s Fund completes it’s fifth year of operation, we can all look back with some pride at its achievements. At the end of the financial year it had raised R 155 million and distributed R 53 million. It has funded over 900 organisations. It is estimated that organisations that have received our funds serve close on to 500,000 children. The Children’s Fund is indeed beginning to make an impact on the lives of our children, their families and their communities.

The Fund is also making good progress towards achieving a goal that I have urged the trustees and management of the Fund to pursue vigorously: the creation of an organisation capable of functioning well beyond my own lifetime. This will require it to establish an endowment capable not only of sustaining itself, but also those organisations that have become its partners.

Despite these achievements, we cannot afford to become complacent. The challenges that we face as a country are huge. The fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS has to intensify, we have to strive to give all our citizens access to quality health-care and education, to stimulate economic growth and create jobs, and to deepen the sense of unity among our citizens. Failure to address the issue of youth unemployment in particular, will have disastrous effects on our social fabric.

It is a challenge that government cannot meet by itself. The private sector, non-government organisations and ordinary people all have to make their contribution. It is a pleasure therefore to introduce an element of the work within the Children’s fund that has the potential to forge the kind partnerships we need.

The Children’s Fund has approved a grant of One Million Rand to the Youth Development Trust, which in collaboration with the Rand Afrikaans University, will develop a skills training programme designed to expose young people to the latest technology. This will enable them not only to become more qualified when they go out in search of jobs, but also to actually create jobs. It is a long-term programme that will require much more resources than what the Children’s Fund has been able to invest.

We hope that this programme will create models that others will adopt and that government and the private sector can replicate on a large scale.

Finally I would like all of us to consider the problems that we face within the context of our history. We have come a long way since 1994. We have a long way to go. But we must not become immobilised by what we think of as the “hugeness” of our problems. Let us consider what can be done, and start finding practical ways of doing things.

The time has come for all of us to stop talking and start acting.

I thank you.
Nelson Mandela
Chairperson and Founder.