Supa Ngwao Museum reopens
| Thursday May 12, 2016 11:51
The museum, which is housed in a 100–year–old Government Camp, was shut down end of September last year due to financial crisis.
Supa Ngwao Museum, which is located in the Jubilee Hospital street, will return in order to serve its purpose of collecting remnants of the past for preserving culture for the next generations.
Supa Ngwao which is a Setswana phrase referring to ‘show culture’, has exhibits on the heritage of people of Francistown, mostly Bakalanga through a collection of wood cravings, musical instruments, basketry and others.
Since the beginning, Supa Ngwao Museum has been dependent on the government subvention for its survival.
The closure of the museum last year clearly demonstrated that the government grants were not enough for the survival of the museum because they only covered operations such as staff salaries, water and electricity bills.
Supa Ngwao Museum director, Stella Rundle confirmed to Showbiz that the museum will be opened today due to the government subvention they received recently. She said that they acquired half of the grant payment worth P90,000.
Rundle added that the money will be used to run the museum for the next six months and the remaining amount will be used as cover till the next financial year.
She disclosed that during the course of the week she will meet with the museum board of trustees to discuss the way forward in running the museum.
“We are going to discuss issues pertaining to the management system, number of employees to hire, salaries of workers, utilities bills and ways of marketing the museum,” she said.
She revealed that the government fund is not enough to cover for all of the museum operational expenses and services.
Rundle indicated that they are going to work harder as the board of trustees so that they can gain the support from the community and corporate companies.
“We ran out of income last year because we lacked support from the community, which made it harder for us to operate. We cannot allow the situation to affect us again because it can demean the existence of the museum,” she said.
She said that she was surprised that the leadership in the community did not notice that the museum was closed which is a great concern to them.
Rundle added that they are going to approach different leaders so that they can have an input in the rebuilding of the museum and encourage the community on the spirit of volunteerism.
“For now, I am going to run the museum alone whilst waiting for the decisions to be made at the annual general meeting (AGM). The museum will be opened three times a week until further notice,” she said.
She concluded that the board of trustees will clarify other issues at the AGM which is coming soon.