Okavango Wilderness Safaris (OWS) is pleased to join forces with reigning Miss Botswana, Lesego Chombo, to support her philanthropic initiative dubbed The Genesis Project under the Lesego Chombo Foundation. Heeding the call to support the Project’s ambition to level the playing field for children brought up in poverty-stricken communities, OWS has pledged P150,000 to help propel greater impact from the initiative. This is the second contribution to Chombo’s Foundation this year from OWS, for the partnership has already seen the commencement of refurbishments at the Shelter Botswana Health Promotions Orphanage in Maun.
The Genesis Project, which is in close alignment to the values and ethos of Wilderness and its non-profit arm being Children in the Wilderness (CITW) as well as Wilderness Botswana’s 3 impact pillars to “Empower, Educate and Protect”. The initiative, established by Chombo in 2023, strives to create impact for Botswana’s children through creating an environment and home culture that adequately fosters their emotional, social and cognitive well-being despite their parents’ limited financial means. Ultimately, this project aims to bridge the gap between the environment that children in rural and poverty stricken homes grow up in versus that in economically stable and urban homes.
“We are thrilled to support this project and the important work being done for the children of Botswana and the important impact this has on their future. When we see young people like Lesego working to positively shape their communities, we cannot simply sit by without getting involved. We all have a collective responsibility to support and empower the youth of Botswana and the children of Botswana, and in doing so to empower all in their ecosystems to help them and nurture their growth. This is what The Genesis Project helps accomplish, and we are proud to stand beside the initiative and support the impact it continues to create”, said Joe Matome, Okavango Wilderness Safaris Caretaker Managing Director.
The efforts of The Genesis Project are delivered, inter alia, through a developmental programme that equips parents with the skills and behavioural attributes necessary in promoting children’s emotional, social and cognitive wellbeing. This is alongside a developmental programme aimed at opening the minds of these children and increasing their exposure to the outside world and opportunities. The communities which are to benefit from this initiative are those in remote rural areas, living in poverty. The idea is to select families of primary school going children per region. As the project grows, it will expand to parents with secondary school going children and ultimately out of school teenagers, thus scaling in effort and impact as inclusively and strategically as possible.
“We are proud, as a Maun-born and based project, to have the support of such as Okavango Wilderness Safaris (Wilderness Botswana). More importantly, we are proud to have their confidence in what we strive to do, for we truly believe we can make a difference together. The goal of The Genesis Project is to build capacity of parents from economically disadvantaged backgrounds for them to understand the parenting approach of Concerted Cultivation and its benefits in levelling the playing field for their children. This affords them the opportunity to go out into the world with confidence, supporting our National ambitions, the UN SDGs and simply our own desires as Batswana to see our people prosper. We hope to see more corporates and corporate citizens get involved as we grow and scale up our efforts and, indeed, our impact”, Lesego Chombo said.
OWS commends Chombo and the Project team for their efforts and wishes Chombo the very best of luck as she flies Botswana’s flag on the global stage at the ongoing 71st Miss World pageant in India.