The Zikulise Community Upliftment Project NPC is a non-profit organisation that provides people with skills training which enhances their ability to become self-employed or gain employment.

As part of its social responsibility program, Avanade visited the Zikulise office in Empangeni, KwaZulu-Natal and provided them with a SharePoint Online instance to manage their documents and website to post regular updates; Powered with Office 365 to give them email and collaboration tools; two laptops to work with all the tools; and a new custom management system running on Windows Azure to track and manage students, courses and their trainers with report-writing functionality.

Louisa Jury, head of Training at Zikulise said: “The fantastic new database will make all our lives so much easier with data capturing and obtaining reports. We liked the new clean, uncluttered look and there is so much one can do with the database in a few quick easy steps. No more switching between screens.”

She also thanked Avanade for the donation of the two laptops, “Complete with all the programmes that we require. They will be put to good use and we are grateful for this support and sponsorship. We really appreciate all that was done for Zikulise.”

“Avanade will continue to support Zikulise to enhance their efforts in improving their process to help communities advance themselves thereby contributing towards the growth and sustainability of the economy,” said Rudi Greyling, chief technolog officer and Innovation director at Avanade South Africa.