Springbok Women Back Campaign to Fix Care Delays

Make Room for Her, launched this October, is a campaign built around a delivery question: whether South African women can actually get seen, diagnosed and treated in time, and whether the systems meant to do that are working. The joint effort by the Springbok Women, Project Flamingo and Engen SA ties the fight for space in women’s sport to the fight for capacity in the public healthcare system. Its premise is execution rather than awareness alone.

Running through October 2026, the campaign pairs the Bok Women with Project Flamingo, an organisation that has spent 16 years working inside the public healthcare system to close gaps through surgery, diagnostics, patient support and system strengthening. Its operational focus is timely treatment: making sure that when a woman asks for help, a pathway exists and functions. Project Flamingo plays a significant partnership role in ensuring patients receive treatment without delay, and the campaign’s central argument is that this kind of delivery, not messaging, is what changes outcomes.

SA Rugby CEO Rian Oberholzer framed the partnership in those terms, saying the message is simple: make room for her voice, her questions, her diagnosis, her treatment and her fight. “We know that our valued Springbok Women have had to earn their own room in South African sport, and that their journey has not always been an easy one,” he said. “Project Flamingo has spent 16 years bridging critical gaps in the public healthcare system through surgery, diagnostics, patient support and system strengthening. Together, this partnership makes the same case twice over, that women deserve to be seen, heard and given the opportunity to thrive. As SA Rugby, we are extremely proud to power forward together and make a genuine difference.”

The operational reality behind the campaign was on display at its launch, when five Springbok Women, Babalwa Latcha, Nadine Roos, Insaf Levy, Chumisa Qawe and Aimee Barett-Theron, met with Dr Liana Roodt, founder and CEO of Project Flamingo, and the multi-disciplinary care team at Groote Schuur hospital’s breast clinic, a facility that sees and cares for thousands of women every year. It is at that clinic level that the campaign’s bottlenecks are most visible: room in clinics, room on waiting lists, room in treatment pathways, and room for women to be heard when they seek care.

Dr Roodt was direct about what needs to be built. “This is not just another breast cancer awareness campaign,” she said. “Our women need systems that respond when they speak, pathways that work when they ask for help, and the confidence to claim the space that was theirs all along. We need to stop talking about making room for women and start doing it, because change will not come from talking about it, but rather from building it, from the inside out. With the Springbok Women and SA Rugby behind us, we can turn hope into meaningful, empowering change for good.”

She also marked the launch with a personal act of accountability, saying she will wear black this October not as a symbol of despair but as an act of reflection and grief, to mourn the preventable suffering that has been allowed to become normal. The remark underlines the campaign’s core critique: that the gap between what the system promises and what it delivers is measured in delayed care.

Corporate backing comes through SA Rugby partner Engen, whose CEO George Roberts positioned the company’s role as support for action rather than visibility. “At Engen, we believe making room for women and fuelling their fight means more than raising awareness,” he said. “It means supporting action that creates meaningful change. We are proud to stand alongside the Springbok Women and Project Flamingo in helping ensure more women are seen, heard and supported when it matters most.”

Meanwhile, the Springbok Women bring their own delivery record to the partnership. They know what it means to fight for room: on the field, in the sporting conversation, in the media, in the stadium, and for women’s sport to grow. The campaign draws a parallel between that struggle and the clinical one, arguing that from the locker room to the chemo room, every woman deserves room to be seen, heard, treated and supported.

For the players, body-awareness is presented as a practical tool on and off the field: for the Springbok Women it is a scrum, and for all women it is described as a life-saving monthly check-in. Further background on the campaign is available at https://novuspressbulletin.co.za/blog/springbok-women-call-on-south-africa-to-make-room-for-her.

The measure of Make Room for Her, on its own terms, will be whether the pathways it points to actually work: whether waiting lists shorten, whether clinics have capacity, and whether women who ask for help receive timely care. The Springbok Women know what it means to fight for their place. Now they are asking South Africa to make room for her.