GEMS promotes cardiac health through Vuyo Mbuli Legacy Projects

Tuesday, May 19 2015

Remembering "Sharp sharp" Vuyo through healthy lifestyle awareness

To mark two years since the death of South African cultural icon and SABC Morning Live presenter, Vuyo Mbuli, the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) is getting involved in a memorial race and community outreach project in his honour.

According to Liziwe Nkonyana, communications and member affairs executive of GEMS, the Scheme had a long association with Vuyo, who for several years served as master of ceremonies at the annual GEMS symposium.

"As the health partner and medical scheme of choice for the public service, it was only right and proper for GEMS to join hands with the Vuyo Mbuli Legacy Project," she says.

The project pays tribute to Vuyo, an ordinary South African who used his knowledge, charisma and media presence to educate and empower others and promote social cohesion.

"One aspect of the project in which GEMS is involved is the Vuyo Mbuli Memorial Race, to be held in Houghton on 24 May. As Vuyo was a three-time Comrades Marathon runner training for his fourth at the time of his death, this event is a particularly apt means of remembering him," Nkonyana adds.

Some 5 000 runners are expected to take part in this ‘Race with a Difference', which will have both 5km and 10km options for participants at differing fitness levels. The race, organised in conjunction with the City of Johannesburg and the Soweto Cabal Running Club, to which Vuyo belonged, aims to promote healthy lifestyle.

GEMS will also be involved in the O Bosso Wena Community Dialogues, to be launched on World Thrombosis Day (13 October). This community outreach programme aims to raise awareness about pulmonary embolism, which is believed to have caused Vuyo's death. A healthcare expert will facilitate the sessions, to take place in community halls in Gauteng‚ the Northern Cape‚ Eastern Cape and Free State, under the theme ‘Stop blood clots, save lives'.

Nkonyana notes, "GEMS encourages its members and the wider public to join in these Vuyo Mbuli Legacy Project events and take a proactive approach to the preservation of their health while remembering this unforgettable South African."  

"The ‘Race with a Difference' forms an integral part of the GEMS drive to keep their members moving so that they will be fit, healthy, happy and productive," adds Nkonyana.  "Along with healthy eating habits exercise is a basic requirement of the well-tuned, efficient body that is able to laugh off stress."