20 Nov 2017

Chairperson of the Presidential Housing Appeal, Colonel Duke Masilo has hailed the church for its role in developing mankind..

She was speaking at a hand over of a house to 79 -year-old Ms Keanole Makopo.

The house was donated by a group of  women from more than six churches who joined hands to make contributions for the construction of that house and a toilet. 

Col. Masilo said the impact of this project was multifaceted and commendable.

He said that the house was the 789^th house to be constructed under this appeal which started in 2010 with the first house being constructed in 2011.

Col. Masilo encouraged village leaders to work together to assist in identifying people in need as at the present moment they were only relying on social workers who submited priority list basing on their assessments.

He noted that government had funds for construction of houses for needy people and an estimated 1 000 houses were billed to be constructed every year citing that this was not enough as needy people were still many in all corners  of the country.

On the other hand, he said that this was the first time to see women from different denominations coming together to do such a noble execution adding that the fund raising attested to the commitment that these churches had as they were using their resources, valuable time and money.

He said that the house belonged to Ms Makopo and the children that she had been living with not members of the extended family who for many years did not find it vital to extent a helping hand to her by finding ways of providing her with suitable accommodation and urged all the siblings not to sell the house under any circumstances.

Col. Masilo encouraged the South East District Council to ensure that they assisted the beneficiary of the house in the event that maintenance works needed to be carried out.

Chairperson of the project committee that raised funds for the house construction Ms Susan Motlapele of Spiritual Healing Church said their journey started in 2008 when they invited all women to start contributing money for a noble venture.

She said among others, the churches forming the committee were Spiritual Healing Church, Methodist, UCCSA, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Botswana, Evangelical Lutheran Church of South Africa, Dutch Reformed Church, Assemblies of God Anglican Church and others.

Ms Motlapele said as the journey was not smooth, some churches fell along the way due to other problems and commitments and re-joined the project later.

After raising enough funds to start the construction, they then visited the Office of the President for assistance with a needy person so that they could start the construction and they were given three names of needy people where they agreed to choose Ms Makopo who was taking care of eight orphans.

On behalf of the beneficiary of the house, Mr Alfred Lekgatho thanked all women and churches that responded to the President’ s call to assist the needy with accommodation and said that what they did was Biblical in that blessed was the hand that gave than the one that received. ENDS