2009 Jet Community Awards entries double

After a four month call-for-entry campaign, the competition closed for nominations at the end of June, and has been followed by a short-listing process where an average of 10 - 12 finalists per region will be selected from the competition's seven regions. All short-listed Jet Community Awards candidates are visited by verification teams from Greater Good SA ahead of the selection process to ensure that each short-listed project is both accountable and sustainable.

The Jet Community Awards annually invites entries from citizens of South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland, specific to those individuals or organisations that have made a worthwhile contribution to the wellbeing of their communities. Last year the Western Cape recorded the most entries, while in 2009 the highest number of entries, 158 compared to 27 last year, were received from Limpopo province. This year also saw Swaziland's entries, which represented the least number of entries last year, grow by 800%.

The Jet Community Awards recognises community projects and grass roots organisations in the four categories of:

• Education - honouring organisations and individuals focusing on school-level programmes of excellence in literacy, maths, science and technology;
  
• We Care - organisations / individuals who focus on people with disabilities, specifically in terms of care, support and empowerment, as well as initiatives with people with disabilities, abused women and orphaned and vulnerable children (OVC) specifically affected by the HIV/AIDS epidemic;
  
• Vukuzenzele - which recognises entrepreneurs and development centres that help create jobs and stimulate economic development. There are three awards within this category - namely awarding black (African, Coloured, Asian) women in business; youths in business (18 - 35) and small business in rural areas; and
  
• Environmental Waste Management - which recognises organisations / individuals that focus on reducing or eliminating waste production as far as possible so that there is less impact on the environment.

The category with the most entries in 2009 is the “We Care” category which has grown 300% since last year with 556 entries, while the “Vukuzenzele” category represents the biggest growth (1000%) across all categories. The “Education” category has also shown a 300% increase from last year while the “Environmental Waste Management” category, which was only introduced in 2008, has almost five times more entries this year with at least one entry being recorded from every region (with the exception of Botswana) compared to last year's competition which only received environmental entries from four regions in South Africa, including the Western Cape, Gauteng, North West and Mpumalanga.

Since its launch in 2003, the Jet Community Awards has re-invested almost R4 million into communities via the prize money to winning organisations. The 2008 Awards distributed more than R1 million in prize money, honouring 36 regional winners, and seven national winners in the process. The seven final winners each received R75,000 cash including R1,000 in Jet shopping vouchers.

Says Jet Club manager, Antashia Sassman, “As Edcon's flagship corporate social investment programme, the Jet Community Awards were created to identify and support community projects from grass roots up. As a family brand committed to making a difference in the lives of individuals, families and society at large, Jet is privileged to be able to contribute to the upliftment of communities by providing vital funding where it is most needed. We are thrilled with the number of entries for the 2009 awards and look forward to announcing this year's community heroes from the competitions' five participating countries.”

The 2009 Jet Community Awards regional finalists will be announced in October. For more information go to www.jetstores.co.za/Jet/Jet+Cares