Adobe South Africa, Nikon South Africa and the local community of creative professionals have teamed up to donate over 2 500 paint sets and books to Cotlands, enabling the community organisations to bring more colour to their Toy Libraries around the country.
Cotlands is a non-profit community development organisation whose objective is primarily to intervene directly within communities to build capacity in caring for children.
RECOGNISING CREATIVE POTENTIAL
Left to right: Marli van Schalkwyk, Marketing Manager for Nikon in SA; Jackie Schoeman, CEO Cotlands; and Grant O’Connor, Adobe Regional Manager for Sub Saharan Africa and IsraelThe donation is the result of Adobe’s Paint the Future Campaign through which it called on its customers, partners and wider community to contribute to the initiative in order to help build a culture of creativity amongst South African children and to assist in nurturing a creative future for South Africa. This call was answered by Nikon in South Africa and many others.
“Cotlands is such an inspiring South African organisation, caring for more than 11 000 children in six provinces,” said Adobe regional manager for sub-Saharan Africa and Israel, Grant O’ Connor, adding that the organisation was playing a crucial role in the country and Adobe was proud that they could make a small contribution towards their work.
“In a recent study conducted by Adobe, it showed that many people do not recognise their own creative potential,” said O’ Connor. “Through ‘Adobe Paint the Future’ we can make a small contribution towards helping children realise from an early age that every single person can be creative in his/her own way.”
ORIGINALITY AND INSPIRATION
Cotlands’ children with their paint sets and books (Images: Adobe South Africa)Cotlands is active in six provinces in South Africa where it offers a variety of programmes such as home based care, counselling, nutrition, early childhood development centres and transitional residential care, among others to more than 10 000 beneficiaries.
Its primary beneficiaries are orphaned and vulnerable children who, in many instances, have been impacted by HIV/AIDS. Its focus is to provide an integrated approach to assist children and their families to ensure the child’s protection, survival and development.
“Photography introduces children to a whole new world of creativity and Nikon is honoured to be able to encourage originality and inspiration from an early age through our association with Adobe’s Paint the Future Campaign,” said chief operations officer for Nikon in South Africa, Romi Jacobs.
