Last night I attended the public sector equivalent of the Oscars - the Impumelelo Social Innovation Awards, dubbed Impumelelo's 2010 Sustainability Awards. I didn't know what to expect, not having gone before, and I'm not sure how the awards stacked up to previous ones, but last night I was blown away. There was glitz, glamour, fantastic entertainment, plenty of laughs and wonderful recognition for the most important work being done in South Africa at the moment. The Oscars actually paled in comparison.

The awards ran on for an hour longer than the program predicted, finishing at 10pm last night. So it was a four hour event, longer than any ceremony, movie or theatrical performance I'd attended before. With Mark Lottering as MC it was more than theatre - it was entertainment of note!

Not that I was not expecting to be entertained; the purpose of the awards is to honour those projects and public sector organisations (ngo's, local government) that benefit society through the upliftment, development, poverty and aids alleviation, environmental renewal, climate change mitigation, or job creation work that they do. What the awards did were open my eyes anew to the wonderful people that we have in South Africa and the amazing work that some of them are doing. With all the kak we read in the media about the state of the country, this was more than a breath of fresh air, it was a gale force exposing the country's best examples of excellent "service delivery". And, yes there are some government projects that are more than delivering.

There were four award categories (Silver, Gold, Platinum and Social Entrepreneur) and around R 1 million in prize money going to the recipients. The Mayor of Cape Town was there as were various other Ministers and dignatories. I thought the format for the evening worked incredibly well and the sponsors certainly got good mileage. It was a long event and there were some blapses where the right person wasn't on the stage at the right time, but where any other MC might feel awkward, Mark Lottering turned this into comedy par excellance. He was brilliant and had us in stitches.

The awards' categories were interspersed with short bursts of live entertainment, put together superbly by the Artscape, who are partners in the award ceremony. This was great as you're aware that not only are we producing these fantastic social projects but we also have great local young artistic talent. There was an operatic duet, sax quartet, Rachmaninoff piano piece and the Jikezela Feather Dance had the audience tapping their feet and bopping their heads. The Artscape was packed to capacity and there was a wonderful buzz in the air.

Rhoda Kadalie, director of Impumelelo, gave passionate insight into what the organisation is all about. If you see her on the street don't say "So you run an awards organisation..." Impumelelo does a lot more. I was impressed that they do case studies on the award winners and publish their research to provide models so similar organisations can adopt the best practices of past winners. A great model for spreading a proven winning formula to other communities and local government departments.

What distinguishes the awards is the methodology and level of research done on each applicant project. I think over 250 applications were received, these are screened and whittled down to 100 projects, which are all interviewed, assessed and findings are fed back to the applicants. The 100 are narrowed down to 40 candidates, and these are made to jump through further hoops. We were part of the process through the work that urban sprout has done on the Cape Town Green Map and it is very thorough. Impumelelo used 26 professional evaluators to access this years awards. There is also a formidable panel of thirteen judges with relevant experience to make the awards. The awards have a high degree of credibility, with only relevant sponsors sitting on the judging panel (Development Bank of SA, for example).

The highlight of the evening was to see the award-winning initiatives themselves. A short video clip (around 2 - 3 minutes) was played for each winner. All of them were cool, and each is doing amazing work. These were some of them that made an impact on me:

Abalimi's Harvest of Hope project. It's a really good model: from seed to table. They not only teach the skills and provide the compost and other inputs for home gardeners to grow their own food, but they have created a market for the vegetables through a box collection scheme that has a minimal carbon footprint - boxes are collected at schools or offices. They currently have around 200 customers and want to expand to 600 in the next couple of years. More about Abalimi here and here.

Seed. Schools Environmental Education and Development (seed) developed an Organic Classroom programme which enables teachers to implement outcomes based education through permaculture food gardens. This means teachers and pupils both receive an education about the environment and get to feed themselves. They've also developed accredited training so permaculture skills can be turned into viable career opportunities. Seed now offer permaculture Saturday workshops to the general public: learn how to become a resilient and resoureful veggie grower of note!

Violence prevention through urban upgrading. Providing smartly designed and integrated facilities in dangerous areas reduces crime. Construction of walkways, 24 hour recreation centres, parks, lighting, patrolling cooperatives, free legal aid, cultural development (sports, computer, music centres, creches), training and local economical development has all helped to reduce crime in Khayelitsha, one of the most dangerous areas in the country.

Orange bag recycling project. I had visions of granny's knitting jerseys from those red or green nylon bags that oranges are packed in. Wrong. Durban's eThekwini municipality impelmented a recycling project where residents are given an orange plastic bag to fill with their recyclables. They've engaged with Mondi and an NGO that provides work for mentally handicapped to rach around 100 000 households.

eThekwini were given kudos by Rhoda as they have been award-winners every year since the inception of the awards and usually enter a number of their projects. (They also won an award for their Landfill Gas to Electricity project and the greening of the Moses Mabhida Stadium)

Kuyasa CDM Pilot Project. 2300 houses in Khayelitsha were retrofitted with solar water heaters, insulated ceilings and energy efficient lighting between 2008 and 2009 which saved electricity and 76% of these households reduced their frequency of respiratory illness. Kuyasa was SA's first registered Clean Development Mechanism project and the world's first Gold Standard project. Permanent employment for 85 people was created.

Music therapy community clinic. It was amazing to see the difference music has made in the lives of traumatised children. Improvements in mood, behaviour and self confidence as well as being able to better interact socially has enabled beneficiaries to become more functional members of society.

Middledrift Dairy Farm. Historically privileged commercial farmers transfer skills to previously disadvantages new farmers! They scout for underproductive land and turn it into a thriving business. Boy does SA need more of this kind of work! Great to see a successful project like this (now can we have it organic, please).

St John's Grahamstown Eye Care. Imagine not being able to see properly for thirty years and then you are able to see again. This is the kind of work done by local optometrists in Grahamstown.

Noah. Nurturing Orphans of Aids for Humanity. SA has an estimated 1.7 million Aids orphans at the moment (projected to rise to 2.5m by 2015. Noah is invited by communities to setup "Arks" providing childhood development, structured sports activities, aftercare, bereavement counselling, life skills and more. Over 100 Arks are caring for 30 000 children and staffed by thousands of volunteers.

It was really fantastic to see the good work by ordinary citizens across the country. It gave me hope for the future of our country and humanity in general, as no doubt we will be facing increasingly tougher times.

I thought the ceremony itself was more than memorable and well executed, and I left impressed by all that the winners and organisers had accomplished. Much respect to Rhoda Kadalie and the whole Impumelelo team.