Former Miss World Zim speaks on charity work
UNITED Kingdom based former beauty queen Amanda Ngcono Nkomo believes that charity begins at home.
The 21 year- old beauty queen, for the love of sharing what she has with the less privileged, formed a charity foundation which is geared towards assisting the needy.
“I grew up in a family that taught me love and the importance of giving, hence all my life I have made it a point that I help where I can .The idea of me having a foundation has always been something I wanted to do, the other reason I formed the foundation was to give back to the country and city (Bulawayo) that raised me.
“The Ngcono Mbowane Foundation was formed in December last year with a vision of being able to work, support and provide the necessary tools needed by people to live a stable life as well as to be able to make communities stronger. Our mission plan is to provide necessities like stationery, sanitary pads, clothes, food and many more things that we can help with as a foundation as helping someone brings so much joy to me,” said Nkomo.
The beauty queen said the foundation has already succeeded in two charity projects.
“Ngcono Mbowane Foundation has
to date completed two charity projects, the first one was in January where we had a school give-away project. The project was done in Tsholotsho where we donated to two schools Mhlambanguba primary school and Landa John Nkomo high school. We donated stationery and sanitary pads. I also had an opportunity to talk to the students about issues that affect teenagers in general touching on topics like education, relationships either with family and friends. The second project was called #GirlTalk held in Bulawayo last month to promote women empowerment,” she said.
Since it is still a new foundation Nkomo says she has not found sponsors to help her with funding.
“For the time being I haven’t got anyone who helps me buy all that I donate and since I am a university student I do work part time and save money to be able to fund the projects but at times my family and church mates help with donations.
“Despite the financial problems we face, we have achieved a lot, this year we have been nominated for the Zimbabwean Young Achieves Awards in the UK under the category Charitable Efforts of Year. We have also been able to reach out and help our local community and just being able to give so much back has being amazing,” Nkomo said.
She said plans to grow the foundation were underway.
“In the long run I plan to grow and build the foundation so that more projects can be done all over Zimbabwe spreading to the whole of Africa too. I plan to focus on helping students especially as I am one person who believes education can give someone a bright future, thus my main focus is children and education. Bu in future I will broaden this and do projects surrounding the community such as the homeless, elderly people, hospitals, sexual violence victims, education on sexual health,” she said.