Soft Touch - Foundation

Principles

The Foundation expresses the Corporate Social Responsibility of Soft Touch Trading (Pty) Ltd, in particular, its engagement with projects to advance the societies where it conducts its business activity. This commitment has given rise to an extensive body of work in diverse areas. The Foundation engages in the promotion of research, advanced training and the transmission of knowledge to society at large, focusing especially on the analysis of emerging issues in five strategic areas: Tourism, Female Youth Leadership, Small Business Development, Social Etiquette & Deportment and Student Workplace Readiness. The Soft Touch Foundation designs, develops and leads projects in these areas; facilitates advanced, specialist employee participation training, sponsor grants, courses, seminars and workshops; encourages award scheme enrolment for allumni whose work and lives have contributed significantly to the advancement of knowledge and delivery; and STT Foundation communicates and disseminates such new accomplishment through publications, debates and lectures.

Foundation values

The presiding values of the Soft Touch Foundation are:

·         social objectivity and

·         independence in decision making,

·         innovation,

·         the pursuit of excellence and

·         an accent on the horizontal and general issues of the day.

Objectives

·         Promote knowledge as the most effective means to address the challenges facing contemporary society. The Soft Touch Foundation sees knowledge as the cornerstone of all its activities, aware that the main obstacle to solving today's problems is a failure to detect and understand their causes.

·         Open new avenues for encounter between the worlds of business development and decision making, in both the public and the private domain.

·         Foster interdisciplinary research on the emerging social up-liftment issues of the 21st century, which express the concerns and aspirations of our society and may determine its future course.

·         Ensure that the results of the work and innovative projects supported by the Soft Touch Foundation are relayed directly to society, in a proactive manner, and to this end enlarge the channels and media through which its activities are publicized (in print publications or the electronic space). The fruits of implementation can thus be placed at the disposal of the wider public.

·         Develop a model of activity which is sensitive to the opportunities yielded by new information and communication technologies.