Tati Nickel Mining Company yesterday (Saturday) held an HIV/Aids Awareness and Wellness Campaign at Matshelagabedi Village, about 15 km east of Francistown.
The campaign is an initiative of the mining company’s peer educators, the North East District Health Team and the District Multisectorial Aids Committee (DMSAC).
The objective is to promote HIV/Aids awareness within the company’s employees and the community within which the company operates. This is in line with the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program which is aimed at promoting a healthy well educated and well skilled community with enhanced business and employment opportunities.
The event was marked by a football tournament in which four teams took part. During the games, there was free HIV/Aids testing and testing services for other diseases like sugar diabetes and high blood pressure. The guest speaker at the event was area MP and Assistant Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Samson Guma Moyo. The partners in this event have agreed that it will become an annual event.
Tati Nickel’s CSR program has several projects under two main focus areas of social development and business development. The CSR program is beneficial to communities which are within a 50 km radius of the mine’s operations. It is primarily aimed at improving and sustaining the livelihoods of the communities within which the mine is operating, with a view to doing business with them in future. The company also emphasizes on returns on the investments that they have made for the beneficiaries and, therefore, goes a long way in assisting to ensure that their investments are always successful.
“We have always believed that we are an integral part of the community that we live in. This belief has played a significant role in shaping our vision towards the communities that we co-exist with…and also defined our corporate social responsibility program,” said members of Tati Nickel management at previous events at which the mine was assisting the community.
Recently, the mining giant forked out P950 000 to benefit Shashe River School and six other junior secondary schools in the improvement of education with focus on Maths and Science. Some of Tati Nickel’s social responsibility projects include a hair salon, a mobile clinic, a tannery, day care centers, poultry farms and a canteen that is situated at the mine.
