The Boikanyo Foundation was initiated by a handful of medical specialists, paediatric cardiothoracic surgeons, businessmen and volunteers from the Round Table.

Their main aim was to raise funds in order to perform lifesaving heart surgery on children in the Charlotte Maxeke Johannesburg Academic Hospital. Due to a lack of adequate facilities and particularly a shortage of intensive care unit nursing sisters who care post-operatively for these small patients, a backlogged waiting list of 300 children had built-up over the previous 12 months. These children all desperately require heart surgery, ranging from relatively simple to more complicated procedures. In order to address the situation, the surgeons volunteer their theatre services at no-charge. However, the consumables used in theatre and the services of intensive care nursing staff who care for the small patients after surgery, still need to be paid for.

The Boikanyo Foundation has managed to generate value amounting to R13.4 million during the past 3 years. Since January 2007, 100 heart operations have been successfully performed in consequence of the funds raised by their Foundation’s resource mobilization unit. These operations would simply not have materialized without their fundraising achievements.