Lifelong friendship helps to change the world

A friendship that started more than 50 years ago in South Africa has sown the seeds for remarkable philanthropic success in two different continents.

Best friends Glynne Wolman and Dorit Sallis have achieved success in their respective charitable efforts and changed the lives of their beneficiaries.

Wolman is the founder of the The Angel Network, a charitable crowdfunding initiative run by a dedicated group of Jewish women that reaches more than 200 000 people across social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

Sallis’s Zurich-based nongovernmental organisation, the Twin Star Project, has also had great success since it launched in 2018, giving financial and legal assistance to economic migrants who have fled West Africa and the Middle East for Europe.

Wolman and Sallis first became friends in Gqeberha (Port Elizabeth) in the 1960s when they were only three years old. They were best friends throughout primary school at Theodor Herzl, but Sallis and her family emigrated to the United States in 1978 when she was 13.

The two friends lost touch with one another, with Sallis residing in various places, including New York, Russia, London, and her current home, Zurich. Meanwhile, Wolman also lived in various places, including London, Israel, Cape Town, and her current home, Johannesburg.

In spite of this long separation, the two were never too far from one another’s thoughts, and in 2016, they reconnected via Sallis’s aunt (who still lives in South Africa). They have subsequently been in regular contact through WhatsApp, but neither initially knew what the other was doing in terms of their philanthropic initiatives. However, since finding out about each other’s organisations, they have collaborated to assist one another.

Wolman is providing invaluable support and advice to Sallis and the Twin Star Project, where she is on the board along with Sallis and seven other people, including two migrants.

Sallis is using the same web designer and social media manager from The Angel Network to assist the Twin Star Project, while her husband has provided critical funding for The Angel Network.

Wolman founded The Angel Network in November 2015 after being asked on Facebook to assist with funding for matric dance dresses and a Santa Shoe Box. After receiving an overwhelming response, Wolman realised that social networking had the potential to realise a considerable change for good for those less fortunate. The Angel Network now has branches in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, and even Sweden and Sydney, Australia.

Through social media, this organisation helps to co-ordinate assistance for a variety of people in need in the local Jewish community and general South African society. Philanthropists and organisations have opened their wallets and hearts, with millions of rand donated to the network.

Rather than merely provide charity on a short-term basis, Wolman seeks to ensure that recipients are given the tools to become self-sufficient and forge sustainable success in their lives and careers – a philosophy that she describes as giving a “hands up”.

However, during 2020, the nature of this assistance changed drastically, as the focus shifted to providing immediate and urgent financial and organisational assistance rather than long-term self-sufficiency. This period has also brought out the best in people, Wolman notes.

“We have met the most phenomenal human beings during COVID-19 who are doing such incredible work on the ground and in their communities. These people have nothing, but still drive around and do the kindest, most benevolent work with no assistance – they are such good people.”

Similar to The Angel Network, the Twin Star Project’s overarching goal is to give a “hands up” to migrants, and help pave the way for them to have a financially self-reliant and productive life.

These migrants face an uphill battle from the moment that they begin their journey. Driven by dire poverty, they travel north through the Sahara Desert to Libya and cross the Mediterranean in dinghies. Tragically, Sallis notes, only about 20% of them successfully make this perilous journey. Many of the migrants who survive then land in Italy, where they struggle to find work after leaving a reception camp, and end up homeless and begging on the streets.

Relying on financial donations, the organisation performs a bridging function, meeting the immediate survival needs of migrants in the precarious period after they leave the reception camp. Migrants are placed in a halfway house in Italy, and are provided with a raft of financial and legal support, including housing and financial aid for living and medical expenses – be it in Europe or back in their countries of origin.

The Twin Star Project then assists the migrants to find future employment either through training or by funding small businesses, either in Italy or back in their home countries.

There have already been numerous success stories, with one migrant having been given the financial aid to establish a grocery store in Nigeria, while her husband is being given advice and material support to set up a business.

Sallis notes that a similar philosophy to The Angel Network underpins the Twin Star Project’s work.

“Ultimately, I want the people that the Twin Star Project helps to move towards their goal as efficiently and quickly as possible. But I also want to ensure that I take good care of them until they find a long-lasting solution for their careers and lives.”

Contrary to the perception that migrants are opportunists looking to take advantage, they are earnest and salt-of-the-earth people, Sallis says.

“I have found migrants to be decent, honest, and exemplary people. Even though they have suffered unimaginably hard times, their kindness and goodness shines through. I want to see them fulfil their potential.”

Sallis has had an illustrious professional career. She is currently managing director of the Joint Chamber of Commerce, which serves as a business bridge between Switzerland, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and the South caucuses, promoting bilateral relations between 13 countries in this region.

In spite of this success, she was motivated to create a larger impact on society. She started the project after seeing images on television of migrants travelling from West Africa to Europe on precarious dinghies.

“I saw images of people floating in dinghies and it broke my heart. As a Jewish person, I know all about expulsion and feeling left out, and I couldn’t just let this go by. It touched a deep nerve. I realise that I got lucky in life, and I want to share my good fortune with those less fortunate.

“The Twin Star Project is the culmination of my professional career, and is beyond meaningful. I believe I will continue to do this forever.”

Sallis says the example set during the Holocaust by the Righteous Among the Nations is an example that she aims to emulate.

“Non-Jews have helped Jews in need in the past, and we have to reciprocate in the present. If they could help us then, then we can help those who are in need right now.”