WOMEN & CHILD INITIATIVES

The Women’s Foundation is dedicated to improving the lives of women and child in Africa starting from South Africa. Right now, many African women in villages survive on less than $1 a day. Together, we have the power to change that.

Nearly a billion people suffer from hunger in the world today, resulting in 3.5 million child deaths every year. Life threatening malnutrition is preventable and treatable. Our programmes tackle issues, such as hunger and lack of medical care” that African women and their children face every day. By improving the women’s living conditions we are working to alleviate poverty in their community. Spreading our work over a number of villages starts a ripple effect of development and growth in communities reducing the number of people living in extreme poverty in Africa.

We aspire to conduct groundbreaking research, to run innovative and impactful community programmes and engage in education and advocacy in the pursuit of three main goals:

• Challenging gender stereotypes.
• Empowering women in poverty to achieve a better quality of life for themselves and their families.
• Growing the number of women in decision-making and leadership positions.

Women’s Foundation promotes equity and opportunity for women of all ages, using research, philanthropy and policy solutions to make meaningful change.

Our vision: Is to make sure women and girls have the opportunity, support and resources to thrive and achieve their true potential.

Our Mission: The Women’s Foundation exists to promote the full and equal participation of women and child in all aspects of African society, by engaging in research, programmes, education and advocacy to drive measurable change.

Platform Cares has invested wisely in the success of women of all ages. The Foundation addresses issues affecting the economic well-being of women and their families throughout the region with the goal of eliminating barriers women face in achieving long-term economic self-sufficiency. Economically self-sufficient women will lead the nation’s next chapter of economic growth, and by investing in the success of women, we are investing in a stronger economy.

Our Strategic Goals

• To be a credible independent resource for expertise and objective research on women’s issues in South Africa
• To challenge gender stereotypes that are at the root cause of so many constraints that women face and impose on themselves
• To increase institutional investment in, and the active implementation of, equal opportunities for women in the workplace
• To create positive and measurable change for women’s economic self-reliance through the implementation of sustainable programmes and initiatives
• To work with local NGOs, businesses, government, academics and media to identify areas for effective collaboration

“Most women feel impassioned and motivated to take part in the struggle to gain human rights for people of their communities. However, they feel that without education or proper empowerment they are pushed back into traditional roles that do not allow them the freedom and mobility to contribute to this struggle.”

 Our Efforts

Women in Poverty: We create pathways for underprivileged women to be more financially literate and achieve economic security.

Girls: We strive to empower girls with the skills and the confidence to achieve their full potential.

Gender Stereotypes: We raise awareness on the root causes for gender stereotyping and unconscious prejudice.

Women in Leadership: We work to increase the number of women in policy and decision-making roles.

The Women’s Initiative was initiated because the founder Ps. Darlington Steve Omeiza believes in women empowerment after growing up with his mother and observing how his father and other men weren’t fully involved in home building. This left his mother and fellow women to chance, aiding him in identifying the need for an organisation that would provide a voice for women and girls in Africa particularly South Africa.

Our Women’s Initiative projects give women the chance to present their own business ideas. Once a business plan is deemed viable, we then offer our women a start-up fund for their project. Once the business is self-reliant, the start-up fund is paid back to Platform Cares and is used to kickstart another business in another village or individual, creating a ripple effect of commerce across small communities.

Alleviate extreme poverty for families living in small African communities, through the hard work of our women. Once they get the start-up fund they need from us to start their business, we provide them with the necessary resources to help generate a regular income. It is their hard work and determination to succeed that makes the businesses successful. At Darlington Steve Foundation now Platform Cares, we give a ‘Hand -Up’.

The businesses we intend to run by the women include sewing, soap making, chalk making, creams/lotions, Fisheries, livestock farming, crop farming or food trees, cash crops, including coffee, products include black soap, Shea butter, Pottery, Crafts and local food production.

The primary objective is to tackle the challenges and inequities that women and girls face across the African society; a greater likelihood of being poorer and lower paid, subject to domestic violence, prejudice in many industries, and less likely to achieve senior positions in the workplace or in politics.

The Foundation was thus launched, modelled on the best such organisations around the world and based on the following key principles: action based on empirical research, dedicated and diverse supporters committed to change, and the support of the private sector for funding and institutional support to engineer change.

Today, The Foundation is the leading catalyst in collaborative efforts to support women’s betterment in the community, identifying the issues, implementing solutions and striving for measurable change using Dexterity Radio to empower and gather more information.

At Platform Cares, we believe that everything starts with research. We are passionate about independent, data-driven and evidence-based, collaboratively-produced research as a catalyst for change.

The Foundation started off as a media – research radio station and research remains the cornerstone of everything we do. It informs our strategic decisions as to where we devote our time, energy and resources, and we hope that by making all our research freely available on our websites, it can be a resource for other watchdog groups and women’s NGOs, the Government, academics and the media.

SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS: We source markets for our women to sell to, creating a supply and demand for their products and keeping them in business using platform store, Eiza streaming and The Ambassadors Magazine to facilitate promotions for them.

‘HAND-UPS’ NOT HANDOUTS: We empower women through work which gives them pride in their work. By providing them with an initial fund and training to establish their businesses, but ultimately the success of the project is down to the hard work that our women put into their work every single day. We have set teams who monitor them monthly to make sure they are still in place and if they are having problems, they can run to our branches and seek for help or send a message and one of our advisers will be standing by to assist them.

FINANCIAL SECURITY: Through working at a sustainable business, women can secure a regular wage meaning that they are able to support themselves and afford to send their children to school and pay for basic healthcare for their families.