Harmony Gold donates bulk of school shoes to change lives of learners!

Harmony Gold together with the Lejweleputswa district municipality, cemented a partnership where 800 school children from all ‘no-fee schools’ received much-needed school shoes.

These schools were identified as the underprivileged, as they are located particularly in rural areas and townships throughout the district.

In collaboration with Lejweleputswa, Matjhabeng and Masilonyana municipalities, a total of 800 schools shoes were donated to learners from five primary schools and one secondary school.

The esteemed campaign which gained impressive momentum, resulted in to schools learners walking away with smiles on their faces.

The shoe drive campaign was held at Ferdie Meyer’s hall in Welkom, with representatives from Harmony Gold, and officials from the distinguished municipalities, this includes of Lejweleputswa’s executive mayor, Veronica Ntakumbana and Matjhabeng mayor, Thanduxolo Khalipa.

The largest gold mining company in South Africa, has over the past donated school uniforms, shoes and other school related materials that are aimed at empowering learners and for embracing social cohesion.

Harmony Gold’s senior state corporate affairs, Sabelo Mgotywa said this initiative forms part of corporate social investment, to do good and serve communities.

“The ultimate goal that brought us here today, is to share school shoes to our communities, as we are on verge of closing the skills gap, by ensuring that our school pupils have proper school uniform,” he said.

“As we are a leading mineral and resource company, we have taken a strive to revert to our ‘giving back to the society’ programme, to help learners with these essentials so they can be in a conducive learning environment with no hassles,” he added.

Harmony, which seats in the heart of Odendaalsrus said it targets these two municipalities serving under Lejweleputswa, as the company has a vast of employees rooting out from these municipalities.

“We saw the need to invest in our communities, as we have a large number of employees coming from these municipalities,” said Mgotywa.

Breaking down schools shoes donated, Mgotywa said Matjhabeng received 600 schools shoes, while Masilonyana bagged 200 shoes.

“Our programme is not limited, as we also look out to matriculants, where we provide bursaries for Maths and Science students.

“These bursaries we handed out is for those who wants to venture into engineering industry,” he added.

Harmony Gold’s general manager Joseph Mahlotsane, who spoke firmly about the township he was born and bred from, said their key role as Harmony, is to offer a helping hand to the needy.

“I was born in this township [Thabong], I know all walks of life in it, as I started at Mantshebo Primary School, and furthered my studies at Leseding Technical School, where I attended a bridging programme offered by Harmony Gold for one year, which it was a leadership programme in Mathematics and Engineering,” said Mahlotsane.

“A shoe builds confidence even if you can wear a nice dress or a suit,” he said.

“Today that’s the reason we are giving you all these shoes so you can bolster your confidence,” he added.

He said that he is delighted to see that majority of senior officials from Harmony root out from Matjhabeng.

Lejweleputswa district municipality mayor, Veronica Ntakumbana sang songs of praise to Harmony for donating schools shoes.

Ntakumbana stressed with a deep concern that, although companies are still continuing with the will of serving communities, she feels that her municipality is battling to deal with the on-going challenges of service delivery.

“As the new leadership that took charge of the office last year in November, we have been attacked by the potholes in many parts of our townships, this is the battle we vow to fight and to combat, as we are on a mission to make service delivery our number one priority,” she said.

“We highly commend Harmony for its contribution to our people, this doesn’t not only start with donating school shoes, but it has been at the forefront of helping our communities, most particularly, when when we had issues flashy floods in Nyakallong and Kutloanong.

“As the mayor I have adopted a school in Tswelopele and also another one in Bulfontein, as we had hiccups such as drug substances and criminal activities, there was no way to combat these illegal activities, but to adopt them,” she added.

“I want to emphasize that we are not only focusing in Matjhabeng only, we would appreciate if Harmony can also extend a hand to other municipalities within the district, most particularly in the farms,” she said.