Face Up
During 2006, we launched our coffee-table book, Face Up, which profiles nine of our Corporate Social Investment (CSI) projects countrywide. We were honoured to have the Minister of Finance, Trevor Manuel, as guest speaker at the launch event, hosted at Discovery’s head office on Monday, 6 March 2006.
Adrian Gore, CEO of Discovery Holdings, opened the event by saying that it was a great honour to represent Discovery on this occasion. He said that although he had spoken on Discovery’s behalf in many forums, this event was different and extremely gratifying as it focused on giving back to the community. In Discovery, he said, he believed that we had built a special company that had done some very exciting things in the past, and would continue to do so. It was only natural that our CSI programme would follow this model and try to do things differently. He stated that just as Discovery is a bold and vigorous company, our CSI programme is similarly innovative and creative.
"Discovery is a young company that has grown rapidly and organically, but we’d like to think that we never left our conscience behind," he said. He added that Discovery had not been very vocal or visual in promoting its social investment projects up till now, but the launch of Face Up gave us with the opportunity to highlight some of our CSI projects and provide greater insight into what is really going on in health care in the country. He went on to say that Discovery’s CSI approach is not about ticking boxes, graphs or formal charters; rather it focuses on aspects on the ground that affect people in a positive way.
Gore described the book as "fabulous, special and different," and said that you would find no extensive lists of projects or amounts of money in this book. Instead it is a book about people; the focus lies on the beneficiaries of our CSI projects and the many people who are intimately involved. He added that these beneficiaries aren’t the lucky ones. Rather, it is Discovery who is lucky, as it is far nicer to give than to receive. The book certainly highlights some of the phenomenal achievements already made by people on the ground, but Gore emphasised that Discovery had a responsibility to keep giving, simply saying, "we can do more; we must do more."
Read more about the book, or download your own copy of Face Up. You can also download Mr Trevor Manuel’s speech.
