Amos Kambonde
As part of the global family the GIPF has joined hands with national institutions in combating the Covid-19 pandemic that is affecting societies worldwide. While the GIPF obtained the status of a critical services provider in terms of the Covid-19 Regulations, the Fund took a principled decision to scale its client facing activities to levels adhering to social distancing and to other measures put in place by His Excellency the President of the Republic of Namibia to combat the rapid spread of this pandemic.
The GIPF remains committed to serving its stakeholders through a number of strategic initiatives. One such core activity is enhancing our stakeholders’ engagement. In light of these prevailing circumstances, the Fund will be embarking on a media campaign aimed at informing, educating and sensitising our members about their benefits and rules of the Fund.
The campaign will commerce on 29 June and will run until 31 July 2020. It is with great pleasure that we invite all our members to make use of these member information sessions on radio and in print. We wish to emphasize that it is our members’ responsibility to make sure that they tune in and listen or buy the local newspapers to know more about GIPF offerings. The public is invited to tune into the local NBC language service station of their choice on Mondays and Tuesdays from 17h00 – 19h00, starting on 29 June 2020.
As a forward-thinking Fund, we have also embraced the use of new technologies and urge members to make use of our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and Website pages for interactive sessions and to gain further information about activities taking place in the Fund.
We further wish to remind our members and beneficiaries that it is important to understand the rules of the Fund and to know how they are applied. GIPF members are encouraged to make use of these platforms to gain more knowledge and be briefed on their rights and responsibilities and to find out what benefits they are entitled to. Members seeking specific updates related to their benefits are encouraged to either contact our offices by calling in or by using our online member portal. Alternatively, members are encouraged to use our email or to inbox us via Facebook and Instagram pages. We are discouraging in person visits to our offices due to Covid-19.
It is our duty to make sure that our members and the general public are informed and well educated about our role and responsibilities as a Fund; as such GIPF is ensuring that all members are aware of the upcoming member education on radio and in print. GIPF will also be running a campaign on the financial injection into the Namibian economy later this year – watch this space for more.
Lastly, members are reminded to wash and sanitize their hands, wear a face mask at all times and practise social distancing.
*Amos Kambonde is GIPF’s Manager: Marketing Services