The Chinese Charity Care Center (CCCC), together with the Chinese Embassy in Gaborone, has donated goods valued at 60,000 pula (about 5,575 U.S. dollars) to the less privileged at SOS Children's Villages of Botswana to assist them during the cold winter season.
Speaking at a ceremony held in Gaborone Friday to hand over the goods, including blankets, food hampers, wheelchairs, Chinese Ambassador to Botswana Wang Xuefeng thanked and praised CCCC for its effort in caring for the SOS Children's Villages.
"Caring for the vulnerable has always been a deeply held virtue of the Chinese nation, I am very glad to see that over years, the Chinese community in Botswana, especially the CCCC, has been adhering to this virtue and extensively engaged in the charity work in local communities," said Wang. "For our children to embrace a brighter tomorrow, China and Botswana have been combating the virus shoulder to shoulder like brothers and sisters. China have provided Botswana with material and technical assistance to the best of our capacity."
Miles Nan, chairman of Charity Association of Chinese in Botswana, one of the founders for CCCC, said that the cold season is here and everybody need to be warm especially during the time of COVID-19.
"In future, we will not be only donating money, blankets or food hampers to our community, we will be happy if we can have some volunteers who will be working with us, more especially the youth," he said.
Botswanan Minister of Transport and Communications Thulaganyo Segokgo expressed delight and gratitude for the donation. He said Botswana and China friendship has brought Chinese scholarship to Botswana students, the donation of Mmopane primary school and last month a donation of 200,000 doses of Sinovac vaccines.
Speaking at the same occasion, Motshwari Kitso, the national director of SOS Children's Villages, also expressed gratitude and said the CCCC has been very loyal to them by donating food hampers, blankets especially since it now is difficult to find sponsorship because of COVID-19.
Currently, the SOS Children's Village in Tlokweng, Gaborone, alone has about 93 children and the donations will be distributed among the three SOS Children's centers in Tlokweng, Serowe and Francistown.
