Corporate social responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is embedded in the core of our values. We understand that the success of a business enterprise, no matter how big or small, depends on the mutual success of the community in which it operates.

Education is a primary focus area for our CSR. Education is the driving force behind real social empowerment and equality, and the key to realizing the possibility of a better world. As an IT company, we see this as an opportunity to play to our strengths and do our bit to bridge the digital divide.

To achieve this, IsoMetrix has teamed up with Partners for Possibility, a non-profit organization driving a creative solution to South Africa’s education crisis. Partners for Possibility is a co-action, co-learning partnership between school principals and business leaders.

We have committed 100 days of time. This time is being used to establish and maintain a number of projects in primary schools in our community.

In the first and second term, we implemented a computer literacy training program for the teachers at Malvern Primary School. Many of the teachers at Malvern have had limited exposure to technology and at least four of the teachers had never used a computer before. While the schools had a number of desktop PCs, these were locked safely away in storage for fear of theft. The desktop PCs were too cumbersome for constant moving in and out of storage, and so fell into disuse.

IsoMetrix donated six refurbished laptops to the school and has committed to a year-long training program to help teachers get the most out of them. So far, the teachers have been trained in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.

The second half of the year will see the continuation of our computer training program, covering Excel, Access, the Internet and email. Computer training for the learners is part of our long-term strategy with the school.

We work with Sefikeng Primary in partnership with St Peter’s Schools, where we participate in weekly reading groups to assist Grade One learners with basic literacy, the foundation on which their education is built.

Every week, volunteers from St Peter’s Schools and IsoMetrix divide the two Grade One classes into small groups of three or four and work through interactive, engaging phonic and vocabulary exercises.

The reading groups at Sefikeng Primary School have had a big impact on the young learners. The individual attention and encouragement has given many of them the confidence necessary to become good readers.

Our CSR is a balance of monetary investment and investing our time. We have a sustainable approach that focuses on education as the biggest catalyst for change. You can’t take education away from a person, and we firmly believe that education is the only way to create equality of opportunity.