Engen has stepped up with fuel support to assist Girls and Boys Town South Africa (GBTSA) with its Education and Tutoring Programmes. 

Engen’s R10 000 fuel donation will be used by the national NPO to ensure that vulnerable young learners continue to have access to quality education by fueling daily transport to their respective schools in the Magaliesburg and Krugersdorp areas. 

Founded 64 years ago, GBTSA has helped to heal the broken hearts of over half a million young people from all walks of life, assisting between 16-20 000 beneficiaries a year either directly or indirectly and via the GBTSA National Hotline.  

Their core focus is to remove obstacles and barriers that prevent children from finding their light – and helping them to heal and then Shine®. 

“We are extremely grateful to Engen for their support, which will go a long way in helping us overcome rising costs,” comments Lee Loynes, CEO from GBTSA. 

“The success of our Education and Tutoring Programmes, which supports projects at our Kagiso Development Centre in Krugersdorp and at the Magaliesburg Youth Development Centre are largely reliant on having sufficient transportation and fuel for our school buses.”  

Although education is essential in enabling upward socioeconomic mobility and key to escaping poverty, many children in South Africa do not have access to quality education.  

These deficits exist from the early childhood development stages and often impact a child’s overall development.  

To address this, the United Nations has adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by implementing 17 Sustainable Development Goals, of which Goal 4 is Quality Education.  

“As a caring and inclusive company with ‘heart’, Engen is firmly committed to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which endeavour to ensure a better and more sustainable future for all,” comments Khalid Latiff, Engen’s General Manager: Corporate Strategy and Communications. 

“We commend the work of GBTSA and hope that our support brings a margin of relief and support to these vulnerable young learners and their families.”  

Engen recognises and acknowledges its obligations and in 2020 embarked on an SDG programme to make a positive contribution to several of the SDGs. 

Subsequently, 9 of the 17 SDG goals (including SDG 4 – Quality Education) were selected as focus areas and form the basis for the Engen Sustainable Development Framework. 

Engen’s flagship education initiative continues to be the Engen Maths and Science School, which has offered under-privileged Grade10-12 learners supplementary classes in Maths, Science and English for over 30 years.  

Engen also invested R11.9 million in bursaries and learnerships in 2021, with encouraging growth in the uptake of EMSS learners that qualify integrated in the Engen Bursary Scheme. 

The Engen SDG Framework was formally launched within the organisation in 2021. 

Adds Latiff: “To ensure momentum and support the implementation of initiatives aligned with the SDGs, each focus SDG has been assigned an Engen General Manager as a sponsor. The sponsor champions the SDG, guides the setting of targets, identification of gaps, and development and implementation of roadmaps.”