Wine, women and song is an apt epicurean pairing, but wine women and barefoot pupils is a very strained union. While sybarite crooners are given to wine women and song ditties, no one ever mentions wine women and bare foot children in the same breath.
Nayang Shoe Drive Charity young professional women however bucked the trend last week, raising their wine glasses and toasting to putting shoes on as many young school going feet as possible.
“Our mission is to identify remote areas in Botswana where underprivileged school going children are in need of shoes. Through fund raising efforts and corporate sponsors we aim to ensure that all of those children have shoes,” said Founder of Nayang Association Kagiso Madibana during a wine tasting event by the association’s shoe drive campaign on Thursday at Avani Hotel.
In an interview with Sunday Standard Lifestyle Madibana said the wine tasting event turned out better than she had expected especially because they have never hosted a wine tasting event before.
Madibana said from ticket sales alone the association managed to raise over P11 000 and an additional P2 000 through auctioning art pieces pledged by a local artist. “Five percent from proceeds of the will go towards buying shoes for the shoe drive campaign while 50 percent from the art auction proceeds will also go towards the same initiative,” Madibana said.
She explained that Nayang exists to aid and empower the under-privileged especially children. “We want to make it easier for them to focus on their education. We have a shoe drive, clothing drive and a literature drive that caters for the children. I recently published a book called Baareng’s journey which is growing in popularity. It falls under our literature drive where we are trying to teach our children the importance of reading from a young age,” said Madibana.
Madibana says the wine tasting event was a partnership between Levdin Consultancy and Global Shapers Botswana. “I met Simba Sibanda of Global Shapers when they invited me to a Meet the Leaders Session at Botho University sometime back and he introduced me to Daphne Babui of Levdin Consultancy. We discovered that we have common interests and decided to work on projects together and the wine tasting event tonight is the first of many to come. I call it networking gone right!” Madibana exclaimed.
She appraised the event on her deal with Chief Executive Officer of Choppies Ottapathu Ramachandran who has given her shelf space in any or all Choppies stores of her choice to sell Baareng’s Journey.
“I am in the process of seeking an investor to help print the 5000 copies that I want to take to different Choppies stores across Botswana, I have not found one yet but I am very hopeful that soon someone will be ready to negotiate the deal,” she said. Madibana said she was also planning a nationwide book tour to reach remote areas. “Five percent of the sales proceeds from the book will go towards the association. It will be up to the executive committee to decide what they to do with it.
Housekeeping and school shoes will definitely remain at the core of that decision,” said Madibana.
