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6 Aug 2012

The organisation's scope of work has since grown to include a food garden, library, arts and culture activities and a community volunteer development project linked to the Emergency First Aid Response (EFAR) programme (please see below for more information on the programme*).

Premier Zille and Minister Meyer will be participating in a certificate handover ceremony to community members who recently completed their EFAR training.

Mothers Unite also received the 2012 Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award in April this year. The award recognises innovative partnerships between citizens, government, business and community organisations that contribute towards improving the quality of life of urban residents. The organisation won the R750 000 prize for its work in demonstrating the impact of "urban acupuncture", an urban environmental methodology that combines theories of urban design with the Eastern practice of acupuncture.

In the "urban acupuncture" approach, an area is regarded as "a complex organism of energy in which different 'energy layers' overlap with each other and influence residents' behaviour and conduct and how an urban area develops. Urban acupuncture is a point-by-point manipulation of the urban energy to create a sustainable town or city, dubbed 'Third Generation Cities'.

(*The EFAR programme trains and dispatches Emergency First Aid Responders (EFARs) in areas of high crime violence, acute illness and accidents. These EFARs are embedded in their communities and can respond to emergencies quickly by being called upon by their neighbours or by being dispatched via the local ambulance dispatch centre. On the scene, the EFARs are able to keep emergency patients alive until fully equipped ambulances arrive and in some cases, they can transport the patients to the hospital directly.)

Issued by: Western Cape Office of the Premier
6 Aug 2012

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