Three social and charitable organizations last week benefited from the generosity of Barclays Bank of Botswana.
The bank donated P30 000 to SOS, P50 000 to the Apostolic Faith Mission and P55 000 to the Lady Khama Trust Fund.
Handing over the cheques to the three beneficiaries, the Managing Director of Barclays, Thuli Johnson, explained that the aim of funding SOS is to support them in building a third village at Serowe.
“The money given to the Apostolic Faith Mission is to assist them to open a day care centre they have been planning to open,” said Johnson. “(And as for) the Lady Khama Trust Fund, we want them to continue uplifting the community projects.”
Johnson added that at Barclays, they are helping the government in the three aspects of health, education and environment.
“We have given a helping hand to Junior Achievement Botswana (JAB) and showed them how the business world works,” he said. He emphasized that the reason for supporting these projects is to complement the government’s efforts and “to leave a mark on the ground.”
“These projects generate internal rate of return,” he added. “Since our fund is a charitable channel fund, we are going to continue uplifting those community projects which are still developing.
Mpho Mothibatsela, who is a trustee for the Lady Khama Trust Fund, promised that the money was going to be put to good use.
And speaking on behalf of SOS, Major General Bakwena Oitsile, who is a Board Chairperson, stated that due to the ever increasing number of orphans in need of care, in 2004, the SOS Board decided to build the third village in Serowe to address this situation.
“This project came to an estimated cost of P15 million. Having realized that the two villages, Tlokweng and Francistown, were at full capacity, we took the initiative to raise funds locally towards this project.”
Though it has not been an easy task, Oitsile said they are happy to announce that so far P4.5 million had been raised and the construction of the project had started. “With this fund we got today, we are going to build another house in Serowe, thus accord twelve orphans a home,” he said.
Oitsile explained that the reason for building this third village in Serowe, (it was initially to be built in Maun) was because of statistics which showed that a greater number of the children is from the Central District, mainly Serowe and surrounding villages.
Pastor Johannes Kgwarapi of the Apostolic Faith Mission (AFM) Gaborone expressed his gratitude and emphasized that, as a Church, they were happy that in Barclays Bank of Botswana, they had a partner.
“Your financial help will not only help us build a day care centre, but also provide us with hope that other businesses will follow in your footsteps to make Botswana a truly compassionate community,” Kgwarapi said. “This is also part of our contribution towards the realization of the national goals of Vision 2016.”
