17 May 2021

Chinese Charity Care Centre on Friday donated blankets, sanitisers and food hampers worth over P60 000 to SOS Children’s Village in Tlokweng.

Speaking at a handing over ceremony on Saturday, China ambassador to Botswana, Mr Wang Xuefeng, commended the centre for demonstrating the spirit of love and warmth to the children’s village.

“I am deeply touched by what you do,” said Mr Wang.  

He also said after seeing the good work SOS was doing, he was compelled to visit the centre often and see what the embassy could do to help the children.

He said caring for children had always been a deeply held traditional virtue of the Chinese nation.  

Mr Wang also said he was glad to see that over the past years, the Chinese community in Botswana especially the charity care centre had been adhering to this virtue and extensively engaged in charity work.

He commended SOS management and staff saying what they were doing was important for the children.  

He emphasised that children were the hope for the future and yet they were also one of the vulnerable groups that must be given special attention especially in this trying time of COVID-19 pandemic. 

Consequently, he said this was why the Chinese Embassy had been providing support not only to organisations like the SOS Children’s Village, but also to pre-schools and primary schools.

“It is on this same spirit that the Chinese Embassy donated 50 radios and CD players to the Ministry of Basic Education to improve access to educational programmes in rural areas,” explained Mr Wang. 

The embassy further donated 2 000 face masks to the SOS village to support its COVID-19 response as well as 50 wheel chairs to the area MP, Mr Thulagano Segokgo for the constituency.  

Mr Wang said the donation would go a long way in demonstrating that love and friendship had no borders.  

The recent donation of 200 000 doses of Sinovac by China to Botswana, he said, was a symbol of friendship between the people of China and Botswana.

Assistant Minister of Basic Education, Ms Nnaniki Makwinja, extended her gratitude to the charity organisation and the Chinese Embassy for the noble gesture.  

She said the donations would make the children feel that they too belonged to the  society.

For his part, MP Segokgo applauded SOS Children’s Village for a sterling work since the formation of the organisation.  

He appreciated challenges faced by the institution such as funding and the hurdles they faced in deinstitutionalising the centre.

Furthermore, he thanked the two countries for friendly relations they continued to enjoy, adding that they had brought about a lot of good for this country.  

He cited for instance, the newly built primary school in Mmopane as well as support given to government to combat COVID-19.

Chairperson of the Charity Association of Chinese in Botswana, Mr Miles Nan, said the donation of 100 blankets, wheelchairs, sanitisers, food hampers as well as kitchen-ware, among others, was not just a mere donation, but would go a long way in showing that they were also part of the SOS family.

Secondly, Mr Miles stated that the donation was part of the charity organisation’s fourth anniversary.  

In the past few years, the Chinese Association of Chinese in Botswana donated more than P20 million to communities.  

They also have an annual charity event at the SOS village dubbed Botswana-China Children Christmas Love day.

National director of SOS Children’s Village, Mr Motshwari Kitso, said the organisation was formed in 1985 and had about 695 children who had graduated from the institution and were now living independently and had successfully blended into the society.

He said the institution now wanted to move away from foster care and instead deinstitutionalise foster care into communities.  

 

However, with COVID-19 ravaging the world, he said the organisation needed support more than ever before because most of their sponsors had funds to the COVID-19 national fund. BOPA