Wednesday, 09 September, 2009

The Dis-Chem Foundation Fund and Primedia Broadcasting’s four radio stations, 567 CapeTalk and 94.5Kfm in Cape Town and 94.7 Highveld Stereo and Talk Radio 702 in Joburg continue to help improve the lives of people in need across South Africa.

The Dis-Chem Foundation and 94.7 Highveld Stereo are rallying to help raise funds to save the life of a two-year-old child who suffers from a life-threatening heart condition.

Ngobile Ngumane was born with a heart full of holes. She had her first corrective surgery at Sunninghill Hospital in May 2007 at just six weeks old and underwent follow-up open-heart surgery in April 2009. Both operations were funded through The Walter Sisulu Paediatric Cardiac Healthcare Foundation.

Doctors believed Ngobile was well on the road to recovery but a post-op check-up in July 2009 showed her heart was still deteriorating. By early August, she was back in hospital where she was treated for heart failure. It was then that doctors discovered at least five tiny holes in the heart chamber that they had not seen during the open-heart surgery. If these leaking valves are not repaired Ngobile will not survive. Unfortunately, the Foundation had already allocated their funds to other children in need and could not contribute further towards a third operation. The operation will cost R350 000.

Touched by Ngobile’s story, The Dis-Chem Foundation – a beneficiary of Dis-Chem Pharmacies’ Benefits Programme – offered to donate R100 000 as a start-up to raise the total that Noni needs to have surgery. Listeners can also contribute by logging onto www.highveld.co.za and donating towards the operation.

The Foundation and Highveld also helped brighten the lives of other children diagnosed with life-threatening illnesses by contributing towards a project run by the Reach For A Dream Foundation.

Reach For A Dream fulfils the dreams of sick children aged between three and 18 and in addition runs an exciting project called The Sunshine Camps. The Sunshine Camps take place in Joburg, Pretoria, Durban, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein. Each camp caters for 40 children who go camping for a weekend. The priority and focus of the weekend is for the children to have as much fun as possible, feel as normal as possible, make friends and have no medical machines attached to them (they will, however, travel with their medication), and no visible nurses and doctors. The children receive goody bags as well as camping equipment and activities include arts and crafts, games, sports and game drives.

The Dis-Chem Foundation has offered to sponsor five Sunshine camps to the total cost of R175 000. The first camp is taking place this October.

702landers also benefited this week when the Foundation donated food to the Union of Jewish Women and helped a little boy to hear.

One of the Union of Jewish Women’s outreach programmes is a soup kitchen at the Hillbrow Clinic which services about 11 000 patients per month. In operation since the early 1960’s, the soup kitchen provides food each weekday to patients at the Hillbrow Clinic between 07h00 and 12h00. Most patients leave home very early in the morning without having eaten anything. Those at the HIV/AIDS and TB Clinics need to eat something prior to taking their medication and it is also necessary for diabetics to eat regularly. Due to the extremely difficult economic climate, they have had to curtail some of the food they are providing.

The Dis-Chem Foundation has offered to sponsor R17,000 a month for the next 12 months (totalling R204,000) towards soup and bread for the soup kitchen.

The Foundation also helped change the life of two-year-old Antonio Vassen when they paid for a special device that would greatly improve his life. Antonio was born with an ear deformity and cannot speak or walk. This in turn has affected his hearing and balance. Antonio needs a Baha Divino unit to help improve his speech and walking. The unit, which costs R37 000, is fitted on to the head and would enable Antonio to pick up sounds which in turn will help him talk, walk and speak.

The Dis-Chem Foundation Fund gives Dis-Chem shoppers the opportunity to donate a percentage of the value of their purchase towards worthy causes each time they swipe their membership card at any Dis-Chem pharmacy. Dis-Chem further adds to the kitty when and where it is needed.

Throughout the year 94.7 Highveld Stereo looks for various ways to provide care and support to charities, organisations or groups of individuals in desperate need of help. By partnering with the Dis-chem Foundation the radio stations are able to make a number of social investments.

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