dotAfrica (dns translation .africa), Africa’s home on the worldwide web proudly administered by Registry Africa Limited, and the Imbumba Foundation’s Trek4Mandela campaign have agreed in principle to collaborate with each other to create visibility and awareness around their respective key strategic imperatives. For Registry Africa this would be to create more visibility and awareness around the continental digital identifier-.africa domain name and for the Imbumba Foundation it would be to showcase and garner support for its multitude of CSI interests.

One of the outcomes of the Trek4Mandela initiative is to raise funds to support the Caring4Girls Programme, which aims at providing indigent girls with sanitary towels so that they can focus on their studies and other life goals by not miss school due to something that is an inherent part of their biological development into young ladies. Since 2012, this initiative has positively impacted over 750 000 girls.

We hope that this partnership between two likeminded organisations, both committed to a bright African future, will shine some light on an important public issue,

Handing over a ceremonial cheque and unveiling two new .africa domain names (caring4girls.africa) to CEO of the Imbumba Foundation, Richard Mabaso, Registry Africa CEO Lucky Masilela said ‘South Africa needs to innovate when it comes to adequately addressing the country’s socio-economic challenges, especially addressing biological interruptions that impede a young girl’s ability to attend school and empower herself through education.

“The old approaches haven’t worked. It’ll be the landmark year of 2020 soon and still we would have young South African and African girls continuing to juggle their educational needs with their personal needs. We hope that this partnership between two likeminded organisations, both committed to a bright African future, will shine some light on an important public issue,” said Mr Masilela.

Also announced at today’s event at the Nelson Mandela Foundation was the 2021 Africa Day CEO’s Challenge, which will see the Foundation’s CEO undertake a personal challenge to summit Mount Kilimanjaro and return to the starting pointing in a record breaking 36 hours on 25 May 2021. Once again this challenge is intended to raise more funds to support a number of CSI initiatives.

This collaboration between Registry Africa and the Imbumba Foundation was inevitable given the parties’ shared passion and appreciation for what Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest peak in Africa, symbolizes. Registry Africa first partnered with Trek4Mandela’s ‘Caring4Girls’ initiative in 2018 after Mr Masilela and the dotAfrica team successfully summited Mount Kilimanjaro in January of that year as part of the dotAfrica “follow the flag” campaign which aimed to raise awareness for the then recently-launched dotAfrica gTLD (geographic Top Level Domain Name) and the opportunities it brings.

“We continue to back this campaign because it is such a tangible way to make a huge difference in the lives of these young girls. Nothing must stand in the way of girls attending school and benefiting from the opportunities that good education unlocks,” concluded Mr Masilela.