Hazyview Mama awarded for relentless hard work and passion
After a very tough 2020, the Clover Mama Afrika team held an intimate Smarties Week Awards ceremony to celebrate each of the phenomenal women that form part of the Clover Mama Afrika project.
While 2020 brought forth challenges, especially in the communities in which these Mamas live, each of them battled their way through to make the year the most successful it could be. At the 14th annual Smarties Week Awards ceremony held at the Wilderness Beach Hotel in Wilderness, Prof Elain Vlok, manager of Clover Mama Afrika Trust, praised the Mamas in attendance.
“The Smarties Week Award ceremony is about recognising the selfless work that our Clover Mama Afrikas do within their communities and the progress they have achieved with their projects over the last year. The awards evening also gives them the opportunity to acknowledge the very individuals that have helped the project achieve the success it is today.”
The week prior to the awards, the Mamas were finally able to travel for Smarties Week training, where they worked hard to learn and improve. This was the first in-person training session since the pandemic hit, which made it extra special. During the week spent in Wilderness, all the Clover Mama Afrikas enjoyed days filled with training, some surprises and some serious discussions about the past year and the year ahead.
The Mamas were welcomed with a special room drop that included a caftan dress co-sponsored by Fluidity, that they wore to the welcome dinner. In the spirit of local tourism, the Clover Mama Afrikas were also taken to the quaint George market during the weekend, where they entertained the visitors with songs on invitation.
Other days featured social-distanced mosaic classes, hand-sewing and other educational activities. “2020 had its challenges, but these were turned into opportunities that we are very proud of. We all had to do things differently, which we did by turning training sessions into virtual training sessions and with that, we still provided eight skills training courses in the short time we had before Covid-19 arrived in South Africa.
The results were impressive to say the least, and this leads us now to thank our project partners that enabled us to do so much more during 2020,” explained Vlok. The top Mamas were awarded, but Sipiwe Solomons of Hazyview represented the province by winning the Above and Beyond Award alongside Mama Mirriam Toni (Mbekweni, Western Cape) and Selestien Moses (Ashbury, Western Cape).
The Above and Beyond Award was given to three Clover Mamas who have each gone above and beyond of what is expected of their normal responsibilities and have been innovative in tackling challenges and turning them into opportunities for all. “We are so proud of our Mama Afrikas and the passion, love and complete dedication they put into everything that they do.
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We would not be Clover Mama Afrika without these amazing women and they never fail to impress us and make us proud!” said Vlok.
About Clover Mama Afrika
Clover Mama Afrika is a sustainable corporate social investment project in existence since 2004. Over the years the project has hosted 426 training sessions with over 2 261 beneficiaries. It teaches and guides strong females (lovingly called ‘Mamas’ due to their standing in their neighbourhoods) in communities all over the country, in order to build their skills and sustain and improve their own community projects. Only the most committed are enrolled and these include women looking after orphans, the elderly and those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
