In it for the Long Run
22 October 2004
On 25 October, a group of runners following a very unusual tricycle will arrive in the Kruger Park, completing a 1 500km west-to-east traverse of South Africa that began on 12 October in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. Pedalling in tandem: a business person, a government official. The point of the exercise? "Sizanani". Business, government, ordinary South Africans - working together.
The 2004 Business Trust Long Run sees teams of at least 10 runners tackling 10-kilometre stretches at a time, taking Africa's longest corporate relay through five of South Africa's nine provinces - and making a number of detours along the way to visit some of the projects that have benefited from the Business Trust.
The Trust, an initiative of South African companies in partnership with the government, undertakes targeted job creation and capacity
building programmes while fostering cooperation between business and government.
Sizanani, the Long Run tandem: business, government pulling together
Since its inception in 1999, the Business Trust, supported by 145 South African companies, has secured over R1-billion in voluntary contributions - doubled by an equivalent contribition from the government - for projects that will benefit an estimated 2.5-million South Africans.
It is to celebrate and showcase this achievement that the teams of runners from government and Business Trust companies have hit the tarmac, promoting the value of the government-business partnership and taking the Trust's message - "together we make a difference" - from one end of the country to the other.
Pro runners, amateur runners
In 2002, a team of 10 professional South African
athletes participated in the inaugural Long Run, in the process setting the fastest ever time over a distance of 1 000 miles (1 600km), a record of 99 hours, three minutes and 27 seconds that was recognised by the Guinness Book of Records.
This year, the pro element comprises athletes Willie Motolo, Josia Thugwane, Nic Bester and Zetelele Sinque. Most participants, however, are strictly amateur, as journalist and TV personality Dennis Beckett - the Long Run's "embedded" journalist - pointed out in his daily brief on last year's Run.
"Some of the business teams burn up tarmac; for most it's a fun-run", Beckett wrote on the Long Run website. "Generally the amateur teams run until the puffing and panting alarms either themselves or the para-meds. Then the pros take over and the escort cars triple their speed."
Stick with it, run together
What's it all about, Beckett asked. "Long
Run symbolises and/or puns one feature of the Business Trust's mission: stick with it. Run, as opposed to race: co-operation is the name of the game. We come from a history of business and government on different sides of fences, and a largely dog-eat-dog mode intra-business."
The Business Trust, Beckett continued, "is into a big, sustained, fix-up of the things that caused the world to invent this word Afro-pessimism; a deep and broad regruk [pull right].
"They're saying that you ruk [pull] better if (a) you keep going when miracles don't come, and (b) you make partnership real, in the bloodstream rather than a mission-statement. The Run entails plenty off celebration of what's great about SA, a fair amount of display of projects the Business Trust has already taken on, and a degree of stock-taking through exposure to nooks and corners outside the comfort-zones of any single person."
SA's malaria-busters
A key project
that benefits from Business Trust backing, the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative (LSDI), was showcased during the 2003 Run. The LSDI, as Beckett explained, is South Africa's malaria-buster.
"Simplistically reduced: malaria has twice been nearly or semi-nearly disposed of. In the 1950s, when Europe finally kicked it out, hopes of the tropics following suit slipped away. Then in the early nineties malaria was back on the ropes until the world got a fright about DDT and banned its use.
"By 2000 malaria killed at least a million people in tropical Africa, and knocked the stuffing, as it were, out of another 300 000 000 or so, ie, around half the population.
"In 1999 the Business Trust helped LSDI get going. It's now going like a rocket, no longer only with business funding but with massive support from both southern African governments and global bodies. Some places, like Lake St Lucia, are now malaria-free for the first time in history. Many others are going the
same way."
Symbol of sustained effort
Some of the other programmes supported by the Trust:
- A set of schooling programmes incorporating over a million pupils, 15 000 teachers and 1 500 schools in all nine provinces has been launched. "These will improve reading ability by two years and writing ability by four years for a million primary school pupils and produce a 10% improvement in mathematics and science results for 400 000 high school pupils", the Trust says in a statement.
- A tourism marketing campaign was launched in the US and Europe which in its first year was seen by 60 million people.
- A training programme was launched that will improve the skills of 15 000 people in the tourism sector, backed up by an enterprise support programme which in its first year assisted 100 small firms and supported 1 877 jobs. Over 1 000 firms will benefit by the end of the programme.
- A programme to support the
integration of the justice system has been supported which has demonstrated, among other things, a 40% reduction in waiting trial time for prisoners in the pilot centres.
Beckett, Ian Laxton and Zetelele Sinque are commentating on this year's Run, with the SA Broadcasting Corporation on board as media partner.
For more information, visit the Long Run website.
SouthAfrica.info reporter
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