Ford Motor Company in July announced the winners of the Ford College Community Challenge, which for 2018-19 revolved around the Building Sustainable Communities Project. Partnering with nonprofit Enactus, Ford encouraged teams of students to craft creative solutions for local problems with sustainability, resulting in four winners from South African universities.
“We are extremely proud of the concepts the student teams came up with for making a difference in their communities and are inspired by the positive impact they have made,” said Neale Hill, Managing Director, Ford Motor Company of Southern Africa. “It is apt that during Mandela Month in July, we celebrate the empowerment of youth through education which was one of Nelson Mandela’s key principles. These students are the agents of change and the leaders of the future as they set the example for others to follow.”
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The winning teams represent the Durban University of Technology, University of Cape Town, University of Fort Hare, and University of Pretoria. The team from Durban partnered with a hotel in Pietermaritzburg to ensure that any food waste would be used to feed the pigs at a nearby farm and used to create fertilizer for crops.
The Cape Town team created fog catchers as part of its Imvotho project, which helps pull rainwater for gardening in a cost-effective matter. The team from Fort Hare also focused on water with a purification scheme for grey water. With the Patio Pallet project, the team from University of Pretoria created a vertical farming method that can be applied at scale throughout the community.
With the winners of the fifth cycle of the Enactus Ford C3 announced, the next wave of finalists for 2019-2020 has been revealed. These include projects from Cape Peninsula University of Technology in Cape Town, Mangosuthu University of Technology, University of KwaZulu-Natal, and the QwaQwa Campus at the University of the Free State.
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