President of South Africa Rugby Union Mark Alexander has received the social cohesion award for his contribution to the development and excellence of South African rugby. He became SARU President in 2016, overseeing a return of South Africa to the summit of World Rugby with back-to-back Rugby World Cup final victories with the Springboks.
The Social Cohesion Award is open to individuals, non-governmental organizations, social enterprises, and community groups that have developed and implemented projects with a strong social impact.
‘I don’t believe this award is for me. I think it is an award for the organization. I form part of an organization and it takes a lot of people to do what we do and I am honored and thankful for this award” Mark Alexander remarked after receiving the award.
He added, ”I think it is important for SARU to receive such an accolade, secondly this award should go to all the South Africans who have supported our team on all social media platforms and encouraging us to do what we do”.
Mark Alexander said SARU faced the worst last eight financial years in its history and it was technically bankrupt when he took over in 2016.
”It didn’t take a handful of people to get this achievement, it took a whole organization to rally together around sports as a catalyst for social cohesion with resilience and to make a difference. This social cohesion can be expanded to all sectors of our society beyond sports but we are just grateful that we can contribute”.
Panyaza Lesufi, the Gauteng Premier praised Mark Alexander for bringing two World Cup victories to South Africa.
”The President of SARU Mark Alexander is my inspiration. He is a symbol of leadership, a symbol of intervention, of dedication that is beyond boundaries. If you check where he took rugby from, all of us had abandoned it, all of us thought that they lost course, but for him to within his term bring us two World Cups, that is unthinkable, that is something we never thought could happen and today we just wanted to say to him thank you, thank you and that is why we felt that we should honor him and appreciate him”.
