Nurture grassroots human capital and save lives – global award finalist

Abstract

Imagine the Western Cape’s R64 million health budget under-spend (2010/2011) being redirected into one tightly knit, strategic unit of social entrepreneurs, NGOs and public sector specialists tasked with growing primary healthcare capacity in burgeoning underserved urban areas.
Now picture that being replicated across the country where a quick glance at under-spending in other far less efficient provinces seems to render the Western Cape’s apparent incapacity (they treated 15.8 million people at primary healthcare clinics the previous financial year, boasting the country’s highest TB cure rate at 79.4%), virtually insignificant. That’s the kind of ‘out the box’ thinking that resulted in long-time social change/empowerment volunteer, Dr Keith Wimble, becoming one of two finalists to represent South Africa in Vodafone’s Graham Maher ‘Change the world’ volunteerism award.