05 May 2021

 Gaborone Lion’s Club has donated 10 wheelchairs to Ghanzi District Health Management Team (DHMT) rehabilitation centre.  

Handing over the donation on Tuesday, Lion’s Club president, Ms Keratilwe Bodilenyane, stated that besides lessening a physical burden on caregivers and bringing about mobility, the wheelchairs would also enhance quality of life for the recipients.

Ms Bodilenyane said the recipients would now be independent while their social integration would also be improved.

“The dignity and joy of movement, which was something a person with mobility issues could only dream about, now becomes a reality,” she reiterated.

Ms Bodilenyane noted that last year, the club celebrated 50 years of service and they thought of doing something worthwhile for Botswana, hence birth of the wheelchair project.

She said the club then decided to provide one wheelchair for every year of club existence.

The president explained that they collaborated with the corporate world, citing President Plastics in South Africa, Sunita Cables, Excel stationery, Motor World and Trans Africa.

She stated that they had previously handed over wheelchairs to Baylor Children’s clinic for cancer patients and Monax shelter for the elderly.

Ghanzi Primary Hospital’s chief medical officer, Dr Biyangidiki Finini, said the gesture came handy because many of their clients were in need of wheelchairs.

For his part, Ghanzi District officer, Mr Thabo Mokoti, said there was a significant number of community members in need of wheelchairs, therefore he thanked Lion’s Club for complementing government efforts.

Mr Mokoti cautioned that wheelchairs were only meant to ease mobility as opposed to be used as seating chairs, saying that extreme seating on a wheelchair could be harmful.ends