South Africa Project 'kicks off' the Wall of Supporters

We’ve recently launched a “Wall of Supporters” on the website for our 2010 FIFA World Cup-centric initiative, South Africa Project.

A minimum of ten dollars buys you a spot on the wall. In exchange for your donation, your personal avatar is posted and provides some visibility for your online presence including a searchable URL. Via use of rollovers, other wall viewers are able to access your customizable profile, personal website, Facebook page,Twitter feed, etc.

One of the reasons Ubuntu Now launched South Africa Project is our conviction that in addition to enjoying the World Cup,  fans and non-fans alike should use this time of celebration to make a contribution and show their support for the people of South Africa– after all, it would be a travesty to gloss over the country’s issues at this crucial time.

Even the minimum $10 donation to the South Africa Project goes a long way. A $70 contribution provides a community with a rape prevention education and promotion kit, $400 can put a community mobilizer to work, and $1,000 sponsors a comprehensive community workshop on the subject. More information can be found at the website for One Man Can, the initiative spearheaded by sister organization in South Africa, Sonke Gender Justice.

This is the time to do something about gender justice in South Africa– join the wall and become part of an extended part of a group of people that want to make a difference. As you all know, in the few months before South Africa is set to host the World Cup, the country will enter the international spotlight, but the statistics that that triggered us to launch this project deserve to be in the spotlight as well:

• South Africa has arguably the highest incidence of rape on the globe, with over 50,000 reported cases. Experts estimate that an addition 450,000 cases go unreported, bringing the total tally to over half a million
• Approximately one thousand three hundred women are raped any given day on South African soil. This means that a South African woman is raped every 17 seconds, child rape non-inclusive. Compare this to about 600 women per day, or one woman every two minutes in the United States, a country whose population is over six times that of South Africa’s
• The country has one of the world’s highest rates of HIV infection, with 12.7% of South Africans infected, compared with 0.4% in the United States
• 1.4 million South African children have been orphaned as a result of  HIV’s devastating impact
• One in four South African men admit to rape, 75% of whom claim to have carried out their first assault before age 20. In addition, half of those men admit to having raped more than once
• According the BBC, a South African woman has a higher chance of being raped than she does of learning how to read and write