23 Apr 2018

SOS Children’s Villages Botswana has a planned picnic festival in Maun on April 28 at Country farm as one of their strategies to optimise funds generation.

The picnic festival is expected to rope in artistes such as Dj La Timmy, Franco, Crispin the Drummer and Maun local DJs in the likes of Big Pun and DJ Cue.

SOS Children’s Village Botswana, senior accountant, Boniface Madieletsa said the picnic festival which was planned to be an annual event was one of the strategies the organisation aimed to use in raising funds.

He also said their presence in Maun was to seek support from the corporate community.

Madieletsa said SOS Children’s Village Botswana currently ran at an estimated budget of between P21 million and P25 million annually. He said the internationally body assisted the organisation with about 60 per cent of the budget while SOS Botswana had to raise the remaining funds.

However, Madieletsa said

the organisation had been experiencing challenges in raising the shortfall from local communities.

He said some sponsors were not forthcoming while some trusted sponsors had relocated from Botswana of recent.

The other main concern, Madieletsa said was the middle income economic status of Botswana which he said put civil organisations like SOS on the negative side although was a positive development.

He said the SOS International body had since advised that it would cease its sponsorship to the SOS Villages Botswana in the near future since it was possible for the organisation to raise the 100 per cent funds locally.

Madieletsa therefore explained that SOS Villages Botswana had to intensify its income generation strategies to increase its revenue.

The programme director at Tlokweng, Oatametse Otlhomile said SOS Villages Botswana had not been managing to raise their share of the budget, adding however that they had been making sacrifices for the sake of the children’s welfare.

Otlhomile noted that SOS Village Botswana had about 393 children under their three homes at Tlokweng, Serowe and Francistown, while about 1218 children were getting assistance while staying with their families.

He observed that SOS Villages Botswana reached out to vulnerable children across the country with some of their children originating from Maun.

He said SOS village catered for children who lost parental care or were at risk of losing parental care.Otlhomile stated that SOS initially focused on institutional care which ensured children were taken to reside at SOS Villages. He however explained that SOS was now moving to community integration care which allowed children to live among SOS families in the communities.

The community integration programme, he said had since incepted in Francistown and Serowe. Otlhomile noted that partnership with the corporate community was crucial since SOS Village Botswana could not manage on its own to provide the basic necessities for the children. BOPA