“Our mission is to eliminate discrimination and stigma in the field of mental health and to support, educate and assist the public, patients and their families regarding available resources and treatment options which will help lead to their recovery”

Started in 1994, the South African Depression and Anxiety Group (SADAG) is South Africa's largest mental health NGO that specialises in identifying the mental health needs of all South Africans and facilitating appropriate and necessary services across all sectors.

SADAG operates the only Toll-Free Suicide Crisis Line in South Africa, an anonymous Toll-Free Police Line for officers in crisis, and the first Toll-Free Substance Abuse line in addition to their15-line call centre. The lines are manned 7 days a week from 8am to 8pm by a team of dedicated, highly-trained counsellors who refer callers to specialised psychologists, psychiatrists and support groups and send vital information brochures and packs to aid in the identification and the successful treatment of mental illnesses.

South Africa has the 8th highest suicide rate according to the UN and 9.5% of all teen deaths in South Africa are due to suicide. SADAG works extensively with youth across South Africa to create awareness, educate and destigmatise mental illness and prevent suicide. Their innovative school-based program - “Suicide Shouldn’t be a Secret” – has been highly successful in empowering the youth to act immediately and effectively when a peer is depressed, suicidal or engaging in risk-taking behaviour.

In South Africa the poor are trapped in a second economy and it is for this sector of the population that SADAG addresses service delivery, especially with regards to HIV and AIDS and mental illness. SADAG actively pursues social development and education in communities that are under-serviced and under-resourced. Through capacity building workshops SADAG is able to address skills development in the most remote areas.

Partnering with Community Based Health Care Workers, the police service, Correctional Services and Traditional Healers, SADAG helps change behaviour and attitude as well as community thinking about mental health as a whole.

http://www.sadag.co.za

Acumen Fund is proud to partner with Books of Hope to provide critical health education to at-risk populations.

Using Patient Capital to Build Transformative Businesses

Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. We seek to prove that small amounts of philanthropic capital, combined with large doses of business acumen, can build thriving enterprises that serve vast numbers of the poor. Our investments focus on delivering affordable, critical goods and services – like health, water, housing and energy – through innovative, market-oriented approaches.

The Challenge

Tremendous wealth is being created in the world today thanks to globalization and the power of technology and markets. Yet there is a growing gap between rich and poor. Something must be done to extend the benefits of the global economy to the majority of the world’s population that lives on less than four dollars a day.

Why Charity Alone isn’t the Answer

Poor people seek dignity, not dependence. Traditional charity often meets immediate needs but too often fails to enable people to solve their own problems over the long term. Market-based approaches have the potential to grow when charitable dollars run out, and they must be a part of the solution to the big problem of poverty.

Why the Marketplace Alone isn’t the Answer

Very low-income people are too often invisible to businesses and society. Businesses see no significant market opportunity and governments view low-income areas as having insufficient tax revenues to pay for basic services like clean water, healthcare, housing and energy. Building new models that provide these critical services at affordable price – in the face of high costs, poor distribution systems, dispersed customers, limited financing options and, at times, corruption – requires imaginative business solutions and
partnerships supported by investors willing to take on a risk/return profile that is unacceptable to traditional financiers.

Changing the Development Paradigm

We believe that pioneering entrepreneurs will ultimately find the solutions to poverty. The entrepreneurs Acumen Fund supports are focused on offering critical services – water, health, housing, and energy – at affordable prices to people earning less than four dollars a day.

The key is patient capital. We use philanthropic capital to make disciplined investments – loans or equity, not grants – that yield both financial and social returns. Any financial returns we receive are recycled into new investments. In the past six years, we have refined the Acumen Fund investment model, built a world-class global team with offices in four countries, and learned what does and does not work in growing businesses that serve low-income people.

History

Acumen Fund was incorporated on April 1, 2001, with seed capital from the Rockefeller Foundation, Cisco Systems Foundation and three individual philanthropists. Since then our network of investors and advisors has grown to include a wide range of individuals and organizations who share our belief in using entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty.

WEBSITE: http://www.acumenfund.org/investments/portfolios/health-portfolio.html