20 Mar 2017

Most of the associations and clubs do not have resources and the funds to run their day to day affairs and activities and the Association of Environmental Clubs of Botswana is not spared from these hardships.

This was said by the acting director of education in Ghanzi, Ms Morewagae during the association’s Annual General Meeting over the weekend, where they were to elect the  new national executive committee.

In her welcoming remarks she urged members of the association to vote wisely looking at competence of the individual without favours so that the association could grow and tackle the environmental issues with the best of its abilities.

She applauded the Ghanzi committee for the work they were doing in schools as the school clubs were active and what they was is visible as shown by clean schools and reasonable water bills in those schools.

She urged committee members to continue with the spirit of volunteerism as it was the only way to take the clubs forward.

She said with the proper use of environmental clubs, a lot of government money and resources could be saved and used for other developmental projects, which could benefit Batswana and improve their livelihood.

Chairperson of  Association of Environmental Clubs of Botswana, Mr Tapson Mpatane noted that  his organisation put the environment first in everything it did.

He said the organisation was based on regions and most of the affiliates were schools even though they had individual affiliates and out of school groups affiliated to them.

He said even though his organisation was faced with challenges because its members were full time employees and the bureaucracy in government system, the members were always striving for success.

The chairperson said they still failed to cover the whole country due to shortage of resources, and this had led to some clubs in some regions to collapse.

He said even though they were using social media to market their association trying to reach out to individual affiliates, it did not bear much fruit and it needed more marketing.

He said as the organisation would be going into elections of national executives, it needed people who were well disciplined and creative to lead the organisation and tackle environmental issues.

The chairperson said since many associations had difficulties in producing financial reports, his association had never experienced such difficulties and had so far improved in reporting issues even if they were not doing well in attending workshops on capacity building. ENDS