HEROES &

MAVERICKS
In their different ways, these men and women transform
and shape the world every day. While some divide opinion,
others kindle into ame faith, hope and a reason to dream.
Propelled by sheer chutzpah, they emerge as conquering,
indomitable gures who are sources of inspiration worldwide.
RYAN SANDES
RUNNING ON INSPIRATION
In 2013 Ryan Sandes ran the TransGranCanaria, becoming the rst person ever to
win an ultra trail race on every continent (including Antarctica). He later went on to
victory at the Patagonian International Marathon held in the aptly named Torres del
Paine on the wild tip of South America and came full circle when he won the Table
Mountain Challenge, the rst trail race he ever ran, back in 2008. This February, he
again won the TransGranCanaria, and with Ryno Griesel smashed the record for the
Drakensberg Grand Traverse (a nonstop 41-hour, 209km run) in March. This month,
he came rst in the seven-day, self-supported Racing the Planet Madagascar, and
leads the 2014 Ultra Trail World Tour. There is simply no other runner like him.
Its denitely mind over matter for Sandes his mental strength has fuelled his
incredible feats. I often wonder where Id be now if I had not won the Gobi Desert
Race [his remarkable debut to extreme running in 2009] If I had played it safe.
If I had listened to the people who said I was crazy, he says. So he has set up the
Wandering Fever Fund (named after a documentary about him), to help other
people reach out and grab their dreams and change their lives.
Read last years prole on citypress.co.za
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IMTIAZ SOOLIMAN
ANGEL OF MERCY
Whatever the crisis earthquake (Afghanistan, Iran,
India, Haiti), tsunami (Sri Lanka, Japan), oods (Malawi,
Mozambique, Pakistan), typhoon (Philippines), famine
(Niger, Somalia) or war (Libya, Sudan, Iraq, Syria and
most recently Gaza) Gift of the Givers dispatches whats
needed to help. Africas largest relief organisation has,
since its launch in 1992 in response to the Bosnian War,
donated over R1 billions worth of aid to 41 countries.
This can be anything from food parcels and medical care
to search-and-rescue teams and rebuilding schools, often
a combination of these. Founder Imtiaz Sooliman, a
former GP, directs and heads the missions himself. Hes
also taken on the cause of individuals, such as the Korkies
(the SA couple kidnapped in Yemen). GOTG is politically
neutral, but last year he admitted that the situation in
Syria has enraged him so much that hes become an
activist for women and children there. If I keep quiet
after what Ive seen, it means things will carry on going
the way they are. Less dramatic but just as crucial, the
organisation also offers counselling, self-help schemes,
water supply, primary healthcare, bursaries and the
Jumpstart entrepreneurship programme at local schools.
Theres no doubt that if it werent for Sooliman, GOTG
and its donors, there would be an enormous, tragic,
unthinkable gap in the world.
Read last years prole on citypress.co.za
LOUISE DRIVER
PAYING IT FORWARD
Fundraising over R100 million is remarkable, but doing
so during a recession makes Louise Driver a woman with
extraordinary hustling talents. As CEO of the Childrens
Hospital Trust, Driver refused to be limited by the
tightening of donor belts. Over four years she secured
enough funding for seven different healthcare projects
at Cape Towns Red Cross War Memorial Childrens
Hospital (including doubling the capacity of the parents
accommodation) and throughout the Western Cape,
including a new radiology complex and a new centre for
infectious diseases. This earned her the 2013 Southern
Africa Fundraiser of the Year award, and last October she
beat nominees from Germany, Spain and Ireland to win
the Global Fundraiser Award, given out by the Resource
Alliance International Fundraising Congress in the
Netherlands. The good work continues, with a new child
speech and hearing programme launched this month in
Mitchells Plain and funding for improvements at various
other hospitals, including Victoria Hospital. Driver
believes her success is due to her honours degree in
marketing marketing being key to fundraising as well
as focusing on relationship-building, innovation and
creativity. Despite a dramatic decrease in foreign funding
due to the economic downturn, she says she couldnt let
this get in the way of the health and lives of children.
ERNST VAN DYK
GOING THE DISTANCE
He races in SAs familiar
green and gold, but Ernst
van Dyk is not your
average international
athlete. Born without legs,
hes a world champion on
wheels. He was 17 when he
earned his national colours
for swimming and went
on to take fth place in the
pool at the 1992 Barcelona
Paralympics. But after also
reaching the semi-nals
in wheelchair events, he
decided to change from
the water to the track.
Great decision. Hes won
the Boston Marathon,
one of the worlds most
prestigious wheelchair
long-distance events,
a record 10 times, and
regularly places on the
podium at others, from
LA to Seoul last year,
he won the Chicago
Marathon and came
second in Boston (the one
that ended in a horror
bomb blast). The 2006
Laureus Sports Award
winner has also shone at
the Paralympics bronze
in Sydney, two silvers and
a bronze in Athens, a gold
and bronze in Beijing and
a silver in London and
was world champion in
2011, 2012 and now in 2014.
Did we mention he won
his ninth Argus Cycle Race
earlier this year? It seems
Van Dyk is a Jack of all
trades (handcycling
and wheelchair road
races, track events and
marathons), but hes
a master of all of them, too.
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TIM NOAKES
CHALLENGING
CONVENTION
Since world-renowned
sports scientist Prof Tim
Noakes entered the dietary
sphere three years ago, he
has emerged as the Galileo
of nutrition. Forget what
youve been taught or told
about healthy eating, he
declared a low fat, high
carb diet, peddled by a
rapacious food industry,
is killing us. Instead, he
committed the ultimate
heresy and turned on its
head the traditional
pyramid eating model
(advocated by the USDA
since 1992) most follow.
He proposed a high fat,
low carb diet that he
maintains will change the
world, one meal at a time.
Noakess book, The Real
Meal Revolution, has
courted considerable
criticism from the medical
fraternity, sporting world
and food industry in the
last year, but in the face
of erce scepticism, it has
been a runaway success
(120 000 sold so far) and
the Nielsens Booksellers
Choice for 2014 Book of
the Year. Noakes is no
stranger to challenging
convention hes already
rewritten the rule books
on sports nutrition and
hydration and is admired
internationally for his
forthright hypotheses.
Whether an opinionated
rebel or an exponent of
myth-busting logic, in the
end hell be judged by his
provocative contributions.
Read last years prole
on citypress.co.za
PATRICE MOTSEPE
BILLIONAIRE BENEFACTOR
Occasionally, on a Sunday, one can open the papers to
a full-page ad for the Motsepe Foundation, telling of
a housing project, improvement of a hospital or a
schools soccer programme. In the past year it has spent
R110 million on 86 projects, ranging from water provision
and agricultural upliftment to education and health. In
January this year the foundation committed R11 million
to the Global Fund to ght Aids, TB and malaria, and in
February announced 360 university bursaries. All made
possible by the millions donated by one of Africas richest
men (according to Forbes). Like other super-wealthy
businessmen, such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffet,
Patrice Motsepe believes in supporting social reform. No,
he really does. And you can understand why. His company,
African Rainbow Minerals, has made his $2.7 billion off
the work of mostly unskilled labour, currently a fractious
world of strikes and higher wage demands. Who better,
then, to be the changing face of the mining world, and
society at large? Sometimes jealously judged for his wealth,
Motsepe has not forgotten what got him there he has
personally mollied his workers at the scene of an accident
that claimed nine lives, saying that his heart is bleeding
for those lost. It seems he is the rare man who has found
the nexus between doing well and doing whats right.
Read last years prole on citypress.co.za
IAN PLAYER
WILD AT HEART
Following large-scale hunting in the 19th century, the
white rhino was thought to be extinct. Then a small
group was discovered in Natal. Ian Player became the
warden at the new Umfolozi Reserve in the 1950s, and
with his mentor-tracker Magqubu Ntombela protected
the 437 rhinos left. In 1961 Operation Rhino began, using
drugs developed by a British vet and administered by
dart gun. Player and Ntombela translocated the rhinos
back to former habitats and also to zoological institutions
around the world. In this way, the species was rescued
from the verge of extinction. Player (brother of golfer
Gary) had planned on a sporting career he won the Dusi
Canoe Marathon three times, a race he established in 1951
but destiny intervened. Player and the late Ntombela
pioneered walking trails in the bush in the 1950s, which
led to the founding of the Wilderness Leadership School
that has spawned a global network of conservationists.
Player also set up the World Wilderness Congress in
1977, the longest running environmental forum on the
planet. And he was at the forefront of the campaign to
protect the St Lucia wetlands (even getting Nelson
Mandela to sign the petition against mining); it later
became SAs rst World Heritage Site. Player, now 87,
is still ghting: threats of mining on the edge of the
iMfolozi wilderness, and rhino poaching his knowledge
and contacts invaluable tools in these urgent battles. G
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HEROES & MAVERICKS
CHARLENE,
PRINCESS OF
MONACO
A NEW ROYAL WAVE
All the world loves a princess,
and if theres a real-life fairy
tale in her story, even better.
Since marrying her prince in
2011, Charlene Wittstock has
caught the imagination of the
world, and a fair bit of tabloid
gossip. But shes a tough,
no-nonsense South African
who is winning doubters over
the same way she charmed
Prince Albert he fell for her
sense of humour, simplicity
and the natural way she relates
to people. She was a top
swimmer for 15 years; this
challenge [becoming royal]
is no more daunting, she told
Vogue in 2011. As the First
Lady of Monaco, she presides
over events like the Grand
Prix and Rose Ball. More
importantly, shes now in
an even better position to
continue her long-running
work in charity and with
the Special Olympics. In
December 2012 she launched
her Foundation, focused on
teaching children to swim.
Shes jumped in the pool with
them in Morocco, France,
Moscow, India and SA more
than 8 000 are now safe
from drowning. In April, she
received the Champion of
Children Award in LA for this
work (previous recipients have
included Audrey Hepburn and
Betty Ford). But the project
perhaps closest to her heart
is Get the Girls to Gold:
helping eight SA
swimmers to
shine in Rio
in 2016.
Turn left at Zapiro. It has
a ring to it. So, too, thought the
residents of Gugulethu in the
Western Cape, who elected to
name a street after the daring
cartoonist. Zapiro (Jonathan
Shapiro) qualies as one of the
esteemed activists who fought
for (and still defends) our
freedom, they said. This doesnt
go without upsetting people
along the way. Zapiro has twice
survived the presidents threat
of defamation lawsuits and
felt the wrath of the worlds
Hindu population with his Lord
Ganesha cartoon last year. His
gutsy art form offers serious
opinion and commentary in a
frequently jocular narrative, but
Zapiros particularly spectacular
lampooning can be far more
barbed (and more memorable)
than anything written. The
caricature of Jacob Zuma with
his showerhead is now a classic
Zapiro signature. With 24-hour
news channels and declining
newspaper circulations
threatening the traditional home
of satirical cartoons, Zapiros
work has gone beyond the Mail
& Guardian, Sunday Times and
The Times. His weekly comic
commentary goes global he
tweets them as soon as the inks
dry, and his collectable annual
compilations are Christmas-
stocking favourites (this years is,
as clever as ever, called Code Red).
Always incisive and inevitably
controversial in SAs social
and political debate, Zapiros
cartoons show that the drawing
pen is mightier than the word.
Read last years prole on
citypress.co.za
ZAPIRO
THE NATIONS
CONSCIENCE
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DAVID GRIER & BRAAM MALHERBE
EXTREME FUNDRAISERS
In 2006 they achieved a world rst by running the entire length of the Great Wall of
China a marathon a day for 98 days. Their aim wasnt to prove their superior running
prowess but to raise funds for Operation Smile, a charity that provides free surgeries
for children with cleft lip and palate deformities. Two years later, the duo ran the entire
SA coastline, over 3 000km, raising R2.5 million. Since then, David Grier has run across
Madagascar (2 700km), after rst solo paddling there from mainland Africa; across the
Indian subcontinent, a world rst (4 008km), and across Cuba in 2013. Braam Malherbe
(with Peter van Kets) went on to represent SA in the six-nation South Pole Race in 2011,
having put skis on for the rst time eight weeks earlier; they came third after stopping to
help the injured British team. Grier and Malherbes feats of tness have got the worlds
attention, and they have shared their stories and passion for other issues conservation,
rhinos, shack res at many talks. Griers words, Imagine a journey fuelled by hope, are
as relevant to the London TED audience he was addressing last year as they are to the
more than 1 200 kids who can now smile thanks to their journeys.
Consultation has to be
meaningful you cant
expect [Afrikaans-speaking]
Karoo farm workers to
understand technical
documents written in
high English lodged at
local libraries thats not
consultation. What is
Jonathan Deal talking
about? Fracking, the
controversial method of
extracting natural gas.
Last year Deal won the
Goldman Environmental
Prize, the biggest of its
kind in the world, which
recognises grassroots
environmentalists for their
sustained and signicant
efforts in his case, taking
on the mining Goliaths.
In 2011, after reading about
Shells plans to apply for
exploratory permits to drill,
Deal turned to Facebook to
educate people about the
risks of fracking and its
likely effect on one of our
untouched landscapes;
such was the response that
he founded Treasure the
Karoo Action Group
(TKAG), which lobbies to
ensure that decisions made
on behalf of the country are
responsible and sustainable.
Deal has worked on this
cause for three years
without a salary, ensuring
theres proper consultation
with the communities
most affected by it. Were
at a stronger point now,
despite the fact that the
government is bullish
about fracking. In March
Deal was an invited
speaker/panelist at Al
Gores international
Climate Reality Project
conference in Joburg, and
recently launched the
Global Citizens Alliance
a forum for ordinary
people to mobilise against
unsustainable practices.
ALEXIA WEBSTER
GIVING HER BEST SHOT
Her Street Studios project took rst prize last year in
the inaugural Artraker Award for Art in Conict, which
attracted submissions from 90 countries. Featuring family
portraits taken in marginal locations around SA, from
Hillbrow to Blikkiesdorp, Websters images showcase
both a talented eye and conscious heart. She believes that
photos help afrm a sense of identity and belonging, in
whatever circumstances the person might be. She takes
props and backdrops with her, to set up a formal outdoor
studio, and a printer to give her subjects a copy of the
picture. The Artraker jury chose her work because it
touches both the viewing public and those photographed.
A grant from the Netherlands-based Prince Claus Fund
has enabled her to expand her service, and earlier this
year Webster set up her street studio in a refugee camp
outside Goma, DRC a place of uncertainty and
transience [where] a family photograph can be a precious
and important object. In the past decade, since becoming a
freelance photographer, her work has appeared in the New
York Times, Guardian, Sunday Telegraph and Washington
Post, among others. She was invited to participate in
European Heritage Day (21 September) in Runion, and
then its on to Madagascar to set up another street studio.
JONATHAN DEAL
SAVING OUR HEARTLAND
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HEROES & MAVERICKS
KINGSLEY HOLGATE
ACTIVIST ADVENTURER
Rhino poaching is a human tragedy, says Kingsley
Holgate. The people of Africa are being subverted and
we are losing an ancient culture. Last year our greatest
adventurer added this issue to his growing list of missions
to make a difference (ghting malaria, giving people
spectacles so they can see, handing out water-purifying
straws). His main expedition of 2013 was a 90-day,
three-country journey in the Lebombo mountains, an
area that includes the highest concentration of rhino in
the world and one that is under siege. He returned with
chilling reports of mansions springing up in villages on
the SA-Mozambique border, where children run around
in gold jewellery and poacher-warlords drag-race in 4x4s.
Holgates tactic in the battle against poaching is to target
children, their parents and communities with his
award-winning Rhino Art project more than 135 000
kids have contributed so far, and its gone global. And the
Rhino Vision project takes rural kids to see rhinos in the
wild so they can understand what they need to protect.
Having followed in the footsteps of many legendary
African explorers, this year Holgates main humanitarian
expedition has been to Lake Turkana in northern Kenya (the
rst European to see it was Count Teleki von Szek in 1888),
stopping in several other countries along the way.
Read last years prole on citypress.co.za
ROLAND SCHOEMAN
FASTEST MAN IN WATER
While his three Olympic medals are a notable feat, whats remarkable about Roland
Schoeman is that hes achieved swimming success despite being asthmatic. In January
he became an ambassador for the Asthma & Allergy Foundation of America. Two years
ago, the European Lung Foundation posted a short lm on YouTube starring Schoeman
called Dont Let Asthma Slow You Down, the clip was used to mark World Spirometer
Day, and to recognise Schoeman as a lung champion. Specialising in sprints in the pool,
he is still the 50m freestyle world record holder (20.30 seconds, set in 2009) the fastest
man in water, like Usain Bolt is on land. At 34 he shows no sign of losing pace, either: by
the end of the 2013 FINA Swimming World Cup series, his gold medal haul was eight for
50m breaststroke, four for buttery, one for freestyle. Having once declined a million-
dollar offer to swim for Qatar, Schoeman hopes to make history by going to the Rio 2016
Olympics. This would make him the rst South African, and one of few athletes ever, to
compete in ve Games. Thats an accomplishment others will chase for years.
MPATHELENI MAKAULULE
CUSTODIAN OF TRADITION
To the people of Limpopo, Mpatheleni Makaulule is a heroine. But the indigenous-rights
and biodiversity activist also stands tall among campaigners from America, Asia, Africa
and the Pacic region. In New York last May, Makaulule received the Global Leadership
Award from the International Indigenous Womens Forum in recognition of her work in
empowering Venda women as custodians of sacred natural sites. Her Mupo Foundation
works with communities to safeguard their land and culture; she has helped preserve
valuable indigenous seeds, and spent years learning the rituals and traditions passed
down by generations of wise elders. To her its all connected. Bold campaigns against
an Australian mining company that wanted to dig for coal, a plan to construct a tourist
resort at the Phipidi waterfall, and a move to chop down the trees of the sacred Thate
Forest have earned Makaulule prominence. She received a Bill Clinton Fellowship
Award to do leadership training at Harvard, and in 2012 was a UN Forest Heroes nalist.
Now aware that she has inuence beyond her province and country, Makaulule declared
on receiving her award: Women need to stand up now as never before.
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ZANELE MUHOLI
IMAGE CONSCIOUS
The accolades are pouring in in 2013 visual activist
photographer Zanele Muholi garnered the Carnegie
International Fine Prize for an emerging artist for her
moving and brave portraits; the Freedom of Expression
Award from the Index on Censorship (she was short-
listed with notorious Russian punk hell-raisers Pussy
Riot); was named a Top Global Thinker of 2013 by Foreign
Policy magazine for photographing hidden lives; and
was made an honorary professor at Germanys Bremen
University of the Arts. The Venice Biennale, too, was
added to the growing list of places around the world that
have had the privilege of seeing her images (from So
Paulo, Milan, Amsterdam and Lagos to Brussels,
Singapore, Berlin and Yale University coming up in
2015, New York and London). This year she won the
Prince Claus Award, given to individuals where
resources and opportunities for cultural expression and
creative production are limited and in Muholis case,
dangerous. She is dedicated to documenting the embattled
LGBT community in SA and Africa, redening stereotypes
and seeking justice. It means recognition, it means
respect, it means a different kind of exposure beyond the
crime, she said of the award but her words also describe
the impact of her work on those she points her lens at.
Read last years prole on citypress.co.za
NICK
SLOANE
RISING TO THE
IMPOSSIBLE
On 27 July, the Costa Concordia
was delivered to its owners in
Genoa, ending the biggest salvage
operation in history. For his
efforts, Nick Sloane was awarded
the Bentleys Infrastructure
Hero of the Year Award for this
unprecedented feat and has
been nominated for the Italian
prime ministers Cavaliere del
Lavoro medal of honour. Sloane
caught the attention of world
media for successfully leading
the parbuckling (rotating) of
the Costa Concordia cruise ship,
wrecked in 2012 . He headed up
a 500-plus- member team that
spent 20 months in Italy plotting
how to turn the ship upright.
Working with a vessel three
football elds long and twice
the size of the Titanic, Sloane
made waves early on merely for
having the gall to attempt the
project. A major risk was that
the ship would buckle and
break, pouring out into the sea
thousands of items, from cooking
pans to poker tables. But years
of experience had prepared
Sloane for this opportunity. As
a child, he used to sail Durban
harbour with his father. He
joined Safmarine in 1980, and
went on to earn a Master
Mariner certicate that allows
him to command a ship of any
size, anywhere in the world.
As a salvage master, hes been
involved in recovery operations
in Yemen, Hong Kong, Papua
New Guinea, Pakistan, Saudi
Arabia, Mexico and all over
Africa, and come to the rescue
of a ship attacked by pirates in
the Gulf of Aden. When hes
not sailing, or saving ships,
hes sharing his expertise at
conferences around the world,
or spending time with his wife
and kids, who have supported
me through my strange career.
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HEROES & MAVERICKS
MIKE BLYTH
AWE-INSPIRING AVIATOR
Leonardo da Vinci mused that once you have tasted
ight you will forever walk the Earth with your eyes
turned skyward. Mike Blyth has spent a great deal of his
life with eyes turned downward, crossing terrain few
have travelled. The only South African to win a microlite
world championship (in 1992), Blyth is also a pioneer
of SA aviation known for his long-distance ying feats.
In 1995 he ew 21 000km from Cape Town to Norway
over ve months, the longest unsupported ight ever
undertaken in a trike-type microlite; a record he bettered
in 1999 ying over three continents, more than 30
countries, over 44 000km in eight months. He has
received dozens of awards, including the FAI Centenary
Medal for Exceptional Flights (also given to Buzz Aldrin,
Steve Fossett and Bertrand Piccard). In 2009 Blyth and
his business partner James Pitman circumnavigated the
globe in 40 days in their self-designed two-seater Sling
aircraft, manufactured by their company, The Airplane
Factory, in Joburg. Last year, by the time Blyth ew into
Wisconsin from SA in his Sling 4 during Airventure
Oshkosh the worlds biggest airshow The Airplane
Factory was known as a company that likes to strap on
its airplanes like seven-league boots to prove their
long-distance ying chops. Blyths ying chops have
been captured in several award-winning documentaries;
one of these, Coast to Coast, shows a Himba girl and a
Mozambican shepherd climbing aboard Blyths plane
and realising for the rst time that the horizon stretches
farther than their neighbouring villages. And therein lies
Blyths greatest feat: he stretches all our horizons, proving
that we need be no more Earth-bound than the eagle.
KUMI
NAIDOO
PLANET
PROTECTOR
Recent Greenpeace actions
have included ascending
The Shard in London in
protest against Shell;
storming a Russian oil rig
in the Arctic Ocean;
preventing a cargo of
whale meat from being
shipped out of Hamburg
harbour; boarding a carrier
full of coal en route from
Australia to South Korea;
and organising a Global
Iceride of 24 000 people in
37 countries. Kumi Naidoo,
the organisations leader,
has participated in most of
these, as well as staging
the rst-ever walk-out at
COP19, the annual UN
climate change talks
(admonishing those in
attendance to stop playing
political poker with the
planet), and rubbing
shoulders with powerful
elites at the annual World
Economic Forum gathering
in Davos (in order to listen
and observe the forces that
shape our world). Naidoo
is a tireless champion of
our planet, a true believer
in people power and
direct action something
he learnt in his youth as an
anti-apartheid activist in
South Africa. His current
greatest concern is to save
the Arctic from oil drilling,
part of a strategy to avert
climate change; more than
ve million have already
signed the petition. It may
seem like an uphill battle
but, he says, Every day,
somewhere in the world,
were winning.
Read last years prole
on citypress.co.za.
NAVI PILLAY
TRUE HUMANITARIAN HEROINE
In a world of adversity, greed, cruelty and countless
human aws, there has been a voice of understanding,
compassion and deep criticism for those failings.
Durban-born Navi Pillay, who has just ended a double
tenure as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
her nal address harshly criticised the entire UN
Security Council for their paralysis in responding to the
crisis in Syria represents what is so often forgotten in
the dreadful doings around the globe: she was the worlds
conscience, the moral voice that spoke out against
everything from unspeakable war crimes to the merciless
abuses suffered by the vulnerable and the sexually
different. While we merely read about Syrian refugees or
Malaysian boat people, Pillay fought for their cause with
almost superhuman determination. She has the credentials
a profound history in the ght against apartheid, the rst
non-white female High Court judge in SA, her service on
the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and her
election to the International Criminal Court. While many
are dismissive of the aegis of the UN, Pillay showed great
strength in the face of complex problems, and for those
she defended, Pillay struck a heroic pose.
Read last years prole on citypress.co.za.
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