Skip to main content

Philanthropy in South Africa

Dear all

A lot of people blame rich people for the things they have done to the planet, and yes, some bad things have happened.

People in South Africa love to blame people who were here before 1994, for taking and not for giving.

Yet, I see a lot that was given: The Kruger National Park; The Rondebosch Common; Ysterplaat Airforce Base; Kirstenbosch Gardens; Rhodes Memorial; The Table Mountain National Park; The Cape Point National Park; Wide Roads and Boulevards; so many endowed Universities, even by people such as Carnegie (America's Steel King), and other "bad" people.

And more recently: Free Wifi in Most Public (Private) Places; Cell Phones with an immense amount of free software; Wikipedia (a free online encyclopedia).

I see companies spending Billions on "fixing the mistakes of the past."

But I don't see this ANC government, or its leaders, doing anything other than lining their pockets and enhancing their own lives. Has Patrice Motsepe endowed a new university, built a new city, given a huge tract of land for a meditation retreat or a Nature Reserve. I'm not picking on Mr Motsepe. He has his Foundation, which does a lot of project, but is he leaving something behind for generations after him to enjoy?

I mean look at what Raymond Ackerman did: http://www.ackermanacademy.co.za/

And what Donald Gordon did: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Institute_of_Business_Science

And the Ruperts with the Rupert Museum in Stellenbosch https://www.inspirock.com/south-africa/stellenbosch/rupert-museum-a966085649 and the Franschhoek Motor Museum   https://www.fmm.co.za/

And look at this: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mfonobongnsehe/2011/08/05/five-notable-african-philanthropists/#653e52f6137c

What have our new leaders done for us poor and middle class people to enhance our lives on a permanent, multi-generational basis?

Love and Regards
David

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Designing your own electricity system - part 7 (fridges)

Here are some specifications regarding energy saving fridges. Tafelberg sell some of the Ardo range of fridges. The Ardo rating is: 130KWH rating per year. Even if it really uses 165KWH per year, that will be amazing as an A++ energy star fridge is rated at 380KWH per year and a normal fridge much higher than that. My normal fridge (which I still need to replace) uses approximately 660 kwh per year which at 70 cents per kwh (my rate) is about R40 per month. Note that this is only based on one day's usage. After a few months, I will have a more accurate number. The Ardo fridge uses about 40Watts when it is on and is so quiet that a friend on mind has it in his passage outside two of the bedrooms. At 165kwh per year , the Ardo fridge costs R10 per month. A normal fridge is about R2000 and an Ardo fridge is about R8000. The difference is R6000, so R6000 / R30 (saving) = 200 months = 17 years. Not a very good payback period, but remember what I said in an earlier part of this blog s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Repair Your World: Solving the electricity crisis at no tax cost to the treasury

My latest letter to the Cape Times editor. Melanie Gosling's articles this week and NERSA today (24th February 2010) approving 25% increases (95% over 3 years) refer. My company has a number of clients who wish to provide their own energy. We don't believe that we can rely on Eskom energy. It isn't sustainable. It isn't clean. Not only is coal polluting the air, mining it is polluting our water resources and destroying our roads. If we weren't in a recession Eskom energy wouldn't be enough for our requirements, so there is no true security of supply, especially as Eskom has not got the increase they wanted. Lastly, in the medium to long term, Eskom's energy is not affordable for our clients and there are already affordable alternatives. However, most of the clients we consult to are too small to fit into the 1 Megawatt bracket which gets the feed in tariff (REFIT). And the REFIT itself is a farce because the government has implemented a tender system w...
5 comments
Read more

Jewish people have some secrets. Here are two of them.

One of these secrets is that we have one day off a week. Another of these secrets is that we welcome dissenting and opposite views. We  welcome Outliers. The Zohar and Talmud are full of opposing opinions and views, even opposing legal  views. I’m studying The Zohar, the Ancient Book of Kabbalah, which dissects the Tanach  and shows why things have been said the way they’ve been said and why things  happened the way they happened. There are many times when I read something, and I  don’t agree with it. I know that if I wait then at some point I will get an opposing view,  which I may or may not agree with. There are even discussions about why a word might  have an extra vav, or why a word doesn’t have a vav. Unfortunately, this internal strength in Judaism is used by our enemies to undermine us  as they will find a Jew who is against Zionism or who uses words like Occupation or  Genocide to say that this is how Jews feel generally. Yet if they...
Post a Comment
Read more