A call to help the children SAVE OUR SOULS SOS villages struggle to keep afloat
One Pula-One Child-One Million campaign fails to take off P26 million needed to run all three centres Covid-19 precautions came at a huge cost
SOS Children’s Villages Botswana is struggling to keep afloat and take care of the 1500 children in their outreach programme plus the 324 children in their alternative care programme.
SOS National Director, Motshwari Kitso says 2020 has been the roughest year in the 34 years of the centre’s existence presenting some of the most extreme challenges that have tested their care systems and processes. Kitso attributes their struggles to dwindling donor levels among other reasons. “At the break of Covid19, as a precautionary measure when we closed our villages to the outside community, donor levels dropped to almost zero,” he says, adding that the precautions came at a huge cost.Kitso also observed that as soon as President Mokgweetsi Masisi appealed to the private sector and individuals to contribute to the national Covid Relief Fund, many of their donors redirected funds to the Covid19 Relief Fund. “It is also very unfortunate because we are not benefitting from the same Covid Relief Fund.” SOS needs P26 million annually to run their three
villages in Tlokweng, Francistown and Serowe, P1.5 million per month per village and P3000 per child per month in all the three.
Over the years SOS received funding from international donors, which has since been significantly reduced. Initially international donor funding stood at about 60 to 70 percent, but has now dropped to 40 percent.
It has been an uphill battle for the non-governmental organisation to raise
the 60 percent that has to be raised locally. Kitso foresees international donor funding dropping to zero percent in 2020 because Botswana is slowly being weaned from international support.
“The country’s upper- middle income status presumes that we have the capacity to support ourselves, but unfortunately to raise funding locally is a mountain to climb,” Kitso says.The centre anticipates an uncertain last quarter of 2020, and therefore has had to re-prioritise and scale down on their programme activities in an effort to stay afloat.
Though their countrywide P1-one child-one million campaign has not gained traction since its launch, Kitso still believes that if one person was to give P1 every month in Botswana, they would raise enough to run their centres.
Kitso regrets that whenever crises strike, the need arises. In the time of Covid19 they have also experienced a surge in the number of interventions they have had to deal with as a result of Gender-Based Violence and other challenges. “There is never a time that our need goes down and people need to understand that in times of crisis children are still here to be taken care of,” Kitso says.
SOS Children’s villages take care of children who have lost complete care of parents and on a short-term basis those from violent divorces and unaccompanied minors. From time to time, they receive cases of child trafficking, where they have to shelter and care for children while investigations are carried out. “Child trafficking is real, we live it,” Kitso says.SOS’s grand plan is not to confine the children under their care in the four walls of the villages. They intend to de-institutionalise the programme and open up their villages so that their children are placed and integrated into the larger society.
This according to Kitso will ensure that children are raised in a ‘normal’ family life environment to become part of the society.
Kgosana Taukobong Kgosimotse of Lesunyane Mafitlhakgosi in Tlokweng concurs that it is important for children to become part of the community and not only known as SOS children, which sometimes causes a lot of stigma.
Bogosi has also come in as part of the raising of the children, often instilling discipline to those that go astray, just as they would for children in the community. Meanwhile First National Bank Botswana (FNBB) this week extended a helping hand to the organisation by donating groceries worth P96 000.