Econet spends M200 000 on foster homes

MATHATO SEBOKA

Maseru – Econet Telecom Lesotho, through the Higherlife Foundation, presented the Beautiful Dreams Society (BDS) with Christmas groceries at an event witnessed by the Minister of Gender and Social Development, Pitso Lesaoana, at Ha Mabote last Friday. After ETL team realized that helping one foster home was not enough, ETL decided to come up with a 12 days to Christmas campaign that assisted 12 different foster homes in different districts of Lesotho. 

ETL General Manager marketing and customer experience head, ‘Mmapusetso Nts’ekhe, said over the past years they chose one particular foster home to provide grocery for Christmas but this year they decided to choose 12 different foster homes in different districts of Lesotho. “We decided that this year we are going extend our hand more with the 12 days to Christmas campaign. ETL contributed over M200 000 that was put together from all the products that the company offers. From that we were able to give out Christmas gifts to 400 kids from all the 12 foster homes, so that the kids can also be able to enjoy Christmas like any other kids,” said Nts’ekhe.

Nts’ekhe said people may assume that this is an advertisement strategy that they use to draw customers to their business but ETL wants to show that it does not mean children living in foster homes do not deserve beautiful things or strive to achieve any profession one wants in life. “During this 12 days campaign, through Higher Life Foundation Lesotho, we were able to help in the trainings because we feel that is not an easy to raise so many kids of different ages,” she said.

The head of BDS, ‘Mojabeng Mosebo, said they are truly thankful to ETL and Higher Life Foundation for all the gifts they have offered the Home.  

“We are very happy and also very thankful to ETL and Higher Life Foundation for giving back to Basotho children. These are the kids who were supposed to be living in their different homes but because of various reasons they live in foster homes,” Mosebo said. “Beautiful Dreams Society was formed in 2010 to assist and take care of victims of human trafficking but as time went by the Ministry of Social Development came to us and pleaded with us to take in children as well. That is why today we have children that we take care of,” Mosebo added.

Mamello Tlali Child Care Co-ordinator at Beautiful Dreams Society explained that they have three permanent house mothers, three relief mothers and 16 children.  “We have 16 children in BDS and the youngest is 5 months old because one of the girls recently had a child. One of BDS’s rules is that we take in children who are 6 years old and above but we recently had a situation where we had two siblings with two minor siblings aged three and six so we could not separate the children that is why we took them both,” Tlali said.

Minister Lesaoana said he was really grateful to see what ETL and Higher Life Foundation is doing for the children of Basotho. He expressed further gratitude for women who are taking good care of the children and treating them as their own children. “The ministry of Gender and Social development runs a budget of more than M1 billion that helps out in taking care of Basotho people, the budget cannot help everyone but we are truly thankful to see industries like Econet Telecom Lesotho putting their hand in their pockets and aiding Basotho children,” he said.