Windhoek
The Meat Corporation of Namibia’s tannery department started the year with a generous gesture by donating 120 hides to the Correctional Services of Namibia at a handover ceremony held last week.
Meatco Tannery responded to the plight of Correctional Services by donating the hides for training convicts in manufacturing shoes.
This is a special donation to the Correctional Services, which has the responsibility to rehabilitate convicts, who are trying to acquire new skills and improve their livelihoods while serving their sentences.
The Namibian Correctional Services is currently training inmates to make leather shoes, amongst other programmes that the prison offers. However, the initiative came to a standstill on numerous occasions, as getting access to animal skins in good condition became a challenge due to inadequate preservation techniques.
Commissioner James Adams said they appreciate the donation, noting that: “The process is now made one step easier by this donation from Meatco. It is very difficult to get animal skins that are ready for the making of an end-product.”
The donated cattle hides will be sent to the Evaristus Shikongo Correctional facility in Tsumeb, where the shoe factory is located.
Apart from the donation of hides Meatco will also be contributing towards the improvement of the inmates’ lives by providing training in the processing of animal hides.