Windhoek
The Meatco Foundation last Friday officially handed over a fully equipped food
trailer to Lebensschule Centre (a centre for children with disabilities) in Rehoboth when the Meatco Foundation Chairperson, Clara Bohitile, gave the key of the trailer to the founder of Lebensschule, Kathy Hampe.
The handover ceremony was the culmination of hard work to realise the dreams and aspirations of the Lebensschule Centre as a contributor towards uplifting children with disabilities in Rehoboth.
The Deputy Minister in the Vice President’s Office, Alexia Manombe-Ncube, the
Director of Education Hardap Region, George Dax, Mayor of Rehoboth Christina Blaauw
and Captain of Rehoboth, John McNab, witnessed the event.
The challenge faced with the centre is to keep up with the operational costs that include
sustaining staff salaries and the fixed costs of the centre that include electricity, water, rates
and taxes. It is against this background that Meatco through its corporate social responsibility vehicle, the Meatco Foundation, agreed to utilise the prize-money received as an award from the Development Bank of Namibia’s good business awards to contribute towards supporting the activities of the centre that is aimed at sustaining income flow to the Lebensschule Centre, so that they can continue implementing their activities and support children with a disability in Rehoboth.
“The support aims at creating a sustainable model for the centre to be able to generate income for sustained operations and enhance support to the children of Lebensschule in Rehoboth that is supported by the centre. We also aim at strengthening Meatco work teams and building employee skills, as well as contribute to professional development. This project is therefore aimed at contributing toward Meatco’s bottom line,” Meatco Foundation Executive, Kingsley Kwenani, said.
“Those of you who know the struggles associated with the sustainability of NGOs and centres like this, especially in regard to administrative cost funding, will appreciate the strides that the Meatco Foundation, Meatco and the Rehoboth-based Meatco staff have made in securing this funding. There are no other options, because without this type of support we cannot successfully address the major issues facing centres like Lebensschule. In an age when innovation is acknowledged as the prime ingredients of economic success – key equipment and initial capital support such as the one we are witnessing today are the only vehicle by which goals can be achieved,” Clara Bohitile noted.
The support provided to Lebensschule includes a self-contained fully equipped food trailer mobile kiosk that will be used for selling frozen products that include ice cream, milkshake, Fruitina and meat products. As part of the strategy the centre has also been supported to sell Meatma products.
Additionally this support is part of the Meatco staff volunteer activities where Meatco staff members from Rehoboth have raised food items, hampers and entertained the kids as part of their giving back to the community.
The support provided to date to the centre amounts to N$130 000.
“I want to issue an invitation to everyone to support this centre as it provides a very unique support to our kids who need special attention, therefore our collective support is needed to sustain the work they do for our kids, our grand and great-grand kids,” Bohitile concluded.