Round Table continues good work

LOBATSE - Chairman of Lobatse Rotary Club, Mr Tiyapo Ngwisanyi has implored members of Round Table area Botswana to continue with their charity work and assist government in other areas of development.
Speaking during the annual joint chairmans induction dinner for area Botswana South tables in Lobatse, Mr Ngwisanyi encouraged them to take charity as a duty not a personal indulgence. He said they should be aware of the fact that charity work was a calling which required organisation, planning and coordination.
He noted that things were no longer like in the past whereby medical and educational services were highly subsidised. He said instead the provision of a social safety net by the state was slowly disappearing.
This therefore creates a vacuum that has to be filled by private charity in the likes of Round Table and other out there, he said.
Mr Ngwisayi said while many wanted to do good for society, there was a challenge of fundraising from different sponsors especially in these turbulent times of economic recession. He said this challenge propels charity organisation to exist and continue being relevant to provide something that the sponsors can relate with.
He said given the recession, focus of the tablers though remained on groups who were destitute they could expand to those who were particularly vulnerable to financial stress faced by single parents, students, the homeless, immigrant communities and those living in areas of deprivation.As such there has never been a more important time for us as charity to be in a position to respond to circumstances of people facing increasing uncertainty and hardships, he said.
Mr Ngwisanyi said as the cost of charity service was rising high as individual tablers also have to dig into their pockets in order to run clubs, they had to now choose and prioritise their projects of assistance.
He said in the era of expanded need and declining resources charity organizations had to find a way of assessing cases they could be involved in.
He challenged the tablers to start teaching people how to get things they deserve without asking much from donors. If we keep giving people what they need even though they do not deserve, it is not helping, he said.
For his part, chairperson of Gaborone Round Table 26, Mr Barnabas Mavuma said they would continue supporting those that were in need.
He said some of their projects included children at the Scottish Livingstone hospital who they bought presents for the Christmas season and the refurbishment of the Resource Centre for the blind in Mochudi to make the structure more habitable.
Chairperson of Lobatse Round Table Mr Tom Mpedi said even though 2008 was a successful year for his branch they had projects which were still lagging behind. He said they were supposed to have built a house for one family but they had not achieved that.
Roundtable is an international charity organization which promotes participation of men in charity organizations. In Botswana the organization was started in the 60s with Gaborone Round Table 26 as the oldest table.
Some of the aims of Round Table are to develop fellowship of young men through the medium of their businesses, professional occupation and community service activities. BOPA