The Voice (Francistown)
Archie Mokoke
18 March 2008
Francistown — Last week, Phakalane Golf Estates presented a cheque of P25 700 to the Tlokweng SOS Children's Village as proceeds from a charity Golf day and ball, which were organised to raise money for the organization last November.
Following an 18-hole golf day and prizes for the winners, guests were treated to an evening of cuisine and entertainment and an auction was conducted to raise the money. The auctioned goods included signed jerseys by popular sports men like Tiger Woods and David Beckham.
At the handing over of the cheque, SOS Botswana deputy national director, Motshwari Kitso, said their biggest intervention is education. "Education is our best weapon," he said, adding that they had so far integrated 73 graduates who are now employed in different sectors and living their lives in the society. He revealed that they also have others at the University of Botswana and Maruapula School who are on scholarships. Kitso said that they had done this through contributions and said that foreign donations had gone down due to Botswana being considered rich enough to source donations locally. He said while they used to get about 50% of their running costs from foreign donation, they were now getting just a third.
SOS provides a family like environment for orphaned and abandoned children. The facilities simulate a normal home with a mother and aunt taking care of brothers and sisters in a house. The children are taken care of and mentored until they are able to cope on their own. Kitso said that when the children are ready to be on their own, they help them to acquire plots to start their own homes. Lesang Magang of Phakalane Golf Estate Hotel Resort said though they had not been directly involved in charity in the past, they had, through the Three Cities group, decided to make the fundraising an annual event. He, however, hastened to say that the money would not be solely for SOS because there are others who are doing the same thing as SOS but are not known.
"I know of a lady taking care of about 20 kids and she is not known. There are tens of thousands of orphans out there who are not in orphanages and we would like other organizations to copy SOS and follow this model," said Magang. He said that he hoped their relationship with SOS would motivate other companies to go to other orphanages.
Three Cities general manager in Phakalane, Gary Pinchen, said they have operations all over Southern Africa and therefore had a corporate social responsibility to look at the future of the region. "Hopefully, this fundraiser will grow and in the next few years we will be visiting more often."
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