09 Sep 2020

Jwaneng Town councillors have resolved to take COVID-19 messages to churches in town amid the rising positive cases.

Speaking in an interview with BOPA, the mayor, Ms Olga Ditsie indicated that it was vital to do so as September had been designated a national month of prayer against many ills.

She said their message was mostly concerning COVID-19, HIV/AIDS as well as the fight against gender based violence.

“All these three have hit Jwaneng hard. COVID-19 cases are rising on a daily basis, and gender based violence is also taking its toll in our town as we have already buried two ladies this year that died at the hands of their partners,” she said.

Ms Ditsie said the decision to take the message to churches comes after the realisation that only a few made it to the launch of month of prayer at the beginning of the month.

“Due to the limited number allowed to congregate, we could not get many churches to come to the launch, so we decided to take the message to them.

We also took advantage of the church congregations because other platforms we could otherwise use to share the message with the public, such as kgotla meetings were currently prohibited,” she said.

Ms Ditsie said their initial plan  was to visit different churches every Sunday for the whole month, adding that the visits have been embraced by churches that they were likely to spill over to October.

“The people are so happy to see their leaders in touch with them in these difficult times.

We work in conjunction with the Ministers’ Fraternal and they informed us that many churches were so looking forward to our visits that it was unlikely to cover all of them in one month,” she said.

Ms Ditsie said that so far they managed to cover seven churches in their first visit, and that the intention was for each of the nine councillors to visit one church each on a Sunday.

Ms Ditsie also expressed her satisfaction at the rate of compliance with COVID-19 protocols by churches as they have put everything that was required in place.

Meanwhile, she appealed to members of the Jwaneng community to cut unnecessary visits to malls, which she said was a great concern.

“There are still instances where people go to shops just to buy small items like a can of drink or a loaf of bread, so my appeal to the people is to cut such non-essential visits and stay home,” she said.

She also raised concern at the tendency by learners to congregate in large numbers after school, saying that should also be highly discouraged.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is a dark cloud that is hovering over our small town and it is upon us to get rid of it through compliance,” she concluded. ENDS