Community Projects

Lafarge believes that its operating sites are an integral part of their surrounding

communities and have a responsibility to promote the sustainable development

and well-being of those communities.

The Engcobo Municipality is an area with a high level of unemployment. The area has good deposits of sand and the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) approached Lafarge to sponsor a brick making project in partnership with the local municipality. This was not only a sound sustainable development project but it had the cooperation of appropriate contributing partners. Energy, Buyelwa Sonjica on 27 May this year.

Lafarge South Africa's involvement to date has been to:

• Train women from the Engcobo community to make bricks
• Fence the land supplied by the Municipality
• Purchase and commission a brick making machine

The project has created 45 direct employment opportunities for women and is expected to provide indirect employment for a further 80 people.

Timed to commemorate National Youth Day,the Youth Build event was held in Eshowe,northern KwaZulu-Natal, between 12 and 26 June. Youth volunteers from the local community built seventy-six houses. Lafarge was one of the major sponsors of the event contributing cement and concrete products for two houses, together with building tools and protective clothing for the volunteers. The Youth Build was an excellent cooperative initiative involving the National Department of Human Settlements, the National Youth Services Department, the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC), the KZN Provincial Department of Human Settlements and the Umlalazi Municipality.

The aim of the current project is to build approximately four hundred houses by staging Lafarge has a well-established relationship with the NHBRC, which focuses in particular on providing disadvantaged, unemployed youths with building skills.

South Africa's construction sector is increasingly constrained by the shortage of necessary skills. In keeping with Lafarge's commitment to assisting the sustainable development of the communities within which it operates, the Aggregates & Concrete Business Unit is playing a role in alleviating the skills shortage. From the beginning of 2008, the BU has arranged and provided finance for 15 learnerships in the current priority trades sectors of millwrights and fitters. The learnerships are structured as a 128 week SETA accredited programme involving a formal agreement  between Lafarge, the Learner and the Mining Qualifi cations Authority (MQA). Learners will undertook three month training sessions at Lichtenburg's Africa Training Centre followed by 3 months of on the job training. 

The Group and CARE have announced a new three-year partnership. With an initial agreement focused on HIV/AIDS prevention in Africa, the new partnership will now be extended beyond Africa with regards to health and will incorporate two new aspects meant to strengthen the Group's contribution to local economic and social development.

We have always been committed to being a responsible actor within the local communities where we operate. Our partnership with CARE will help to continue supporting communities in the most effective and beneficial way. The initial partnership between Lafarge and CARE was signed in 2003 for a five-year period, regarding HIV/AIDS prevention. This co-operation helped create an effective and recognised health programme, which now enables all Lafarge employees in Africa, and often their local communities, to have free and anonymous access to HIV prevention, tests and treatment

Lafarge South Africa has been recognised in the 2009 Awards for Business Excellence by the Global

Business Coalition (GBC). This organisation promotes international business interventions in the fight

against the three major global pandemics: HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The 2009 Awards was

presented during the GBC Business Action on Global Health conference at the end of June this year, held in

Washington DC, USA. We were commended for our holistic programme of HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment interventions. In particular, Lafarge was awarded 2nd place in the category for programme performance monitoring.

GBC said that Lafarge in South Africa stands out for its regular KAP surveys - transparent assessments by independent external specialists - which allow the company to continually adjust its focus and ensure the HIV/AIDS programme's resources are applied effectively.