Looking Back At Our Top Stories From 2012

As we start a new year back at North Star Alliance, and prepare for what is already stacking up to be a busy 2013, we wanted to take a moment and look back at some of the stories that helped shape 2012. In case you missed any of these, here are our top 5 headlines from the last 365 days.


North Star Alliance Director named Social Entrepreneur of the year at the World Economic Forum on Africa

In May, we were excited to share that North Star Alliance’s Director Africa, Paul Matthew, was awarded Social Entrepreneur of the Year Africa by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship at the World Economic Forum Africa. While we’ve recognised the innovative nature of our work since North Star’s inception, we were all truly honoured to see one of our founding directors receive this much deserved award. Read our press release, or watch a video from the ceremony.


NSEWA Learning Network to improve road freight industry

In October, North Star and partner Fleet Forum launched a new health and safety training programme for truck drivers called NSEWA with support from the UPS Foundation and Road Safety fund. Meant to close the gap between health services and road safety through specially designed driver safety training and health-related programmes, NSEWA will help refresh and reinforce skills required by drivers to stay healthy and safe while raising funds to support North Star’s network of Roadside Wellness Centres across Africa.


North Star Alliance Opens New Roadside Wellness Centres

This year, we were excited to open new Roadside Wellness Centres across Africa. In June, we opened new clinics in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe and Ficksburg, South Africa; In July, we opened a laboratory in Salgaa, Kenya; in November, we launched two new clinics in Kazungula Ferry, Botswana, and Forbes, Zimbabwe; and, on World AIDS Day, December 1st, we opened our first clinic in West Africa, located in Farafenni, The Gambia.


Making of the North Star Alliance Roadshow [VIDEO]

Throughout 2011 and 2012, North Star and TNT hit the road, visiting truck stops, conferences, and office blocks across Europe to raise awareness about health, mobility, and the important role North Star Alliance’s network of Roadside Wellness Centers is playing across East, West, and Southern Africa. To look back on this successful campaign, we put together a short video highlighting what it took to take our story on the road across Europe.

More more information on our Roadshow, visit our the Roadshow Blog.


Campaigns Raise Awareness About Communicable Disease and Healthy Living

2012 was a busy year for campaigns at North Star. Aside from our Roadshow with TNT, our regional offices and local clinics were busy reaching out to people in their communities and to the mobile workers passing through.

In February on Valentine’s Day, North Star Peer Educator Thabsile Sithole hosted the Love Campaign to encourage couples to come in together for an HIV test. On World Malaria Day, Roadside Wellness Centres throughout our network hosted community outreach and testing campaigns and our Chirundu South location in Zimbabwe even sent in some photos. In November, our Southern Africa Regional Office sponsored the Thousand Hills Football Club near our Cato Ridge Wellness Centre as a way to promote healthy living among local youth; and, on World AIDS Day, our Roadside Wellness Centres across Africa hosted HIV awareness and testing campaigns. Finally, throughout the year, we continued our SMS campaign with Cell-Life that enabled us to reach truck drivers via text messages to raise awareness about a range of topics with one SMS per day.