On Tuesday, saly and soda ash miner, Botash, donated printing and photocopying machines worth P1.2 million to five primary schools and one secondary in the Nata-Gweta constituency during a ceremony held at Kutamogoree Primary School.
The donations were part of Botash’s ‘Towards Sustainable Mining’ (TSM) strategy. The strategy involves developing collaborative relationships and partnerships with local communities to promote socio-economic development as well as addressing community concerns.
The primary schools that received the donations are Kutamogoree, Makongwa, Tachibona, Mosetse, and Moremogolo and Dukwi junior secondary school.
Cash amounting to P300, 000 was donated separately to cover the cost of servicing the donated machines.
Botash managing director, Kangangwani Phatshwane explained that their TSM strategy started in 2020 and to date the mine has spent over P57 million on community projects and is committed to fostering self-sustaining community projects.
“In 2023, we largely directed our sponsorship efforts towards our education pillar recognising a pressing need within various schools related to printing challenges that adversely affected the overall learning experience for both students and teachers,” Phatshwane said.
Phatshwane thanked Nashua for donating 180 boxes of printing paper (30 boxes per school) at a cost of over P60, 000.
Nashua, have an agreement with Botash to deliver printers to schools and to install.
Nashua service manager-North Mothusi Italy expressed gratitude for being a part of an ‘initiative that bears positive results to the community’. The donated printers are Pro 8300S models, which have a long lifespan and can produce approximately 83 copies per minute.
Shadrack Moffat, the chief education officer at Tutume Sub Region, expressed appreciation on behalf of the Ministries of Education and Local Government, noting
that the gesture by Botash will go a long way towards helping schools to run their administrative operations efficiently ultimately helping improve learners’ results.
“As the sub region, we are on the right track towards improving our
performance rate. It has been dropping for the past five years, but last year we began to see a turnaround,” Moffat said.
