The Donkerhoek Social Club hosted a Christmas lunch for the community’s elderly residents in Windhoek on Saturday to welcome the festive season and treat the pensioners of Donkerhoek to a day of relaxation as an early Christmas present.
The lunch catered for about 100 hundred pensioners, providing full meals, including a starter, main meal and dessert, which was also delivered to the homes of pensioners who couldn’t attend.
The main sponsors of the event, Tate Village Accommodation, included shopping vouchers to the value of N$300 for each pensioner, totalling N$30 000.
Tate Village Accomodation group operations manager Rachel Manyasha, who spoke on behalf of the group’s executive director Tangeni Shiimi ya Shiimi, said the company sponsored the event as a way of giving back to the community, since Shiimi Ya Shiimi grew up in the same neighborhood and lives by the mantra, ‘it takes a village to raise a child’. He found this to be an opportunity to lift the elderly’s spirits, considering that Christmas only happens one in a year, Manyasha said.
The club’s deputy chairperson, Polli Andima, said as a club they feel they have a social responsibility to give back to the parents in the community.
He said it is not the first time that the club has held such events, having hosted programmes for the community in 2018, 2019 and 2021.
Andima expressed gratitude to the sponsor who made the event possible.
The club was founded eight years ago and has about 200 members.
At the same event, Katutura East constituency councillor Richard !Gaoseb commended the City of Windhoek’s council for the approved debt relief programme that will cover debts until 30 November 2023, which he says will be a great relief to many pensioners.
The programme will offer 100% debt write off on both capital and interest amounts for pensioners, provided they have applied for pre-paid water and electricity meters.
The programme further aims to support residents in challenging times, as well as for compliance purposes, as some of the debts have become irrecoverable.
The Namibian spoke to some pensioners at the event, who expressed their gratitude.
Marx Lazarus (63) said he was excited to be one of the invited guests. “It’s my first time to attend such an event and it is a great gesture, I am grateful,” he said.“This is a good way of spending time with neighbours and friends, thank you for the vouchers,” said Hulda Andima (83).
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