Elderly get Christmas treat
TWENTY elderly people living at an old people’s home in Mutare’s highdensity suburb of Sakubva received festive season gifts from a newly formed charity organisation that also pledged to start a medical programme to continuously check on their health every month.
Speaking at the handover of groceries and Christmas gifts to the elderly people at Zororai Old People’s Home on Sunday, founder and president of the Tendai Chitowa Foundation, Mr Tendai Chitowa, said his organisation would engage local doctors for the programme.
The programme would also extend its helping hand to orphans and vulnerable children, whom the organisation would assist with school fees.
“As indigenous entrepreneurs, we need to have the spirit of giving.
“In terms of the academic scholarships, at times it is $30 school fees needed to empower an underprivileged child to go to school in the rural areas,” he said.
“For the disabled, it will work on providing sustainable empowerment initiatives, while for the orphans and vulnerable children, the organisation will look for academic scholarships to help educate them and give them a better chance to become self sufficient in their lives.
“The foundation will soon start a medical programme where some local medical doctors will offer medical services to the elderly monthly,” said Mr Chitowa.
Tendai Chitowa Foundation board chairman Mr Lloyd Mapunga said the Christmas gift, which comprised some groceries and fast foods, was a way of thanking the community that bred them.
“Most indigenous business people rarely venture into charity work, but we are saying this should change. We have to give back to the community no matter how little and this is what the foundation will focus on.
“Why should we wait for the international non-governmental organisations to carry the burden of helping our own people?
“This is our inspiration and as the old saying goes; charity begins at home, this foundation will begin with Manicaland, but we will aim to expand our work all over the country,” he said.