Earlier this month, e-hailing company, DiDi partnered with IOL to launch its holiday cheer campaign, aptly named #MakeItFestive.
The campaign, together with its competition, sought to spread some much-needed festive joy to e-hailing riders and DiDi drivers who have experienced a tough and challenging year.
This week, the IOL judging panel selected the most heartwarming stories from the riders and drivers’ entries - and the winners of the competition were announced on Thursday, just in time for Christmas.
The festive giveaways included a selection of 20 DiDi vouchers to riders to visit family and friends, and DiDi drivers won food vouchers worth R1 000 each. As part of this offering, DiDi also gave away three return flights to the winners to visit family in either Gqeberha, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Pretoria or Ekhurhuleni.
“We are honoured to give back to our local communities this December through our Festive Cheer campaign. The Covid-19 pandemic has been a time of hardship for many, so we aimed to provide some hope in a bid to bring back some festive cheer by bringing families together. We have been inspired by the reaction from our driver-partners and riders, and look forward to reading and hearing more of the many inspirational stories, especially when the winners reunite with their loved ones,” said Carina Smith-Allin, DiDi’s Head of PR & Communication for the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
According to the judges, some of the winning entries were filled with emotion, while others were inspiring, despite the despair, which made the task of choosing the winners extremely difficult.
One winner, Paul Tloubatla said, “I am too stressed. I (am) unemployed. My mom passed on last year and I am only left with my dad who is (from) Limpopo. I really wanna see him this holiday however I am so broke to go home .
#MakeitFestive
#DidiRides
#DidiDrivers”
Another entry was from Claudine van Blerk: My mom has cancer and I haven't seen her in a long time. I would really love to see her and spend Christmas time with my mom. We are really close and I miss her.
#MakeItFestive
Marco Charles nominated his friend, Luciano Ricardo Dos Santos. “I would like to nominate Luciano Ricardo Dos Santos. He had a stroke 2 years ago and hasn't seen his family in PTA in a few years. Things have been tough financially and emotionally and this would mean the world to him.”
Carol Bruton’s entry said, “We as RAM - Rescue Among Many NPO would love to win a voucher for food for our underprivileged children in a rural town we support weekly. (We are located in CT & travel weekly to Montagu - even a travel to take the food would be great.) A voucher could assist with a nice festive meal for children, elders, and homeless folk.
#MakeItFestive, #DidiRides, #DidiDrivers
Shireen Naidoo: Life has become so short we living on borrowed time have not seen family or friends in the past year business is slow and harder but we have to keep moving forward and be positive for our kids
#MakeItFestive
Navi Nandkumar: Need a little getaway with my family after recovering from covid. So grateful to God that we survived. #Make it festive and #DidiRides/#DidiDrivers
Eric Sibiya: I haven't seen my mom in over 4 months and would really love visiting her as we only communicate with phone calls so I would really appreciate it if I won a trip with Didi
#Makeitfestive #Didirides
#Dididrivers
Zaire Ismail: I deserve to Win because as much as I have celebrated the small victories of the year that has gone by I too reflect on the trials, challenges and constant change we have all had to endure.
Personally, I think everyone should win as we can all do with a bit of positivity and a few good wins to sign-off 2021!
Simply put, I deserve to Win because I'm ready to reconnect with friends and family I have not seen over the past 2 years due to fears of a pandemic, I'm ready and I'm ready to win! #makeitfestive
Here is the final list of winners:
•Paul Tloubatla
•Claudine van Blerk
•Luciano Ricardo Dos Santos
•Ephraim Sifiso Dlamini
•Alvin Chetty
•Aaliyah Harris
•Mbongeni Hadebe
•Cecilie Louw
•Tammy Mouta
•Louise Barnard
•Carol Bruton
•Jill Permall
•Yvette Diane Van Der Berg
•Lynne Morland
•Eric Sibiya
•Naseem Hess
•Shireen Naidoo
•Jenny Naik
•Kevin Naidoo
•Navi Nandkumar
•Zaire Ismail
•John Goliath
•Renata Noble
All winners have been contacted by DiDi to make arrangements for collection of their prizes.