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Rumbidzai Mhlanga, Sunday News Reporter
Anthu Foundation yesterday donated equipment to Bulawayo’s Thorngrove Hospital for infectious people.
The organisation was formed early this year and was launched in April at St Columbu’s Parish Church with the motive of uniting the culturally diverse community and work with its members to develop the wards through active citizenry, unity of purpose and social, economic and cultural focus.
The founder and chairperson of the foundation, Mr Lionel Muchirahondo, related to this publication why the foundation was formed.
“Anthu Foundation is a non-profit organisation established to promote and cater for the socio-economic needs of the citizens of Bulawayo specifically looking at Ward 7 and 8 comprising Nguboyenja, Makokoba, Thorngrove, Mzilikazi and Barbourfields. The motive was to unite the culturally diverse community realising that Makokoba area is one of the first townships to be built in Bulawayo and it is a culture melting pot with people coming from every culture in Southern Africa, hence Anthu was formed so as to unite such people as well as develop cultural values in those places.
“As part of our active citizenry and community outreach focus, our first step was to visit Thorngrove Hospital which is a hospital for isolated people with infectious diseases. For starters we found out that the hospital had no patient monitor and had problems with glucose machines and sticks then we decided to donate the much needed equipment to the hospital as well as fruits since they are really important for patients,” he added.
The founder also shared with Sunday News Anthu’s future plans.
“The Thorngrove Hospital outreach was an opportunity for us to take the first step and introduce the organisation to the public. We have a lot of initiatives lined up like the Book Drive 2019 where we will be donating books to Robert Tredgold and St Columbu’s. We also have our upcoming schools competitions, the first of their kind in Bulawayo, where we will be hosting the very first IsiNdebele Spelling Bee and IsiNdebele Debate in September.
“We will also host an arts competition under the theme ‘Africa Through My Eyes’ and the schools involved will be Mzilikazi, St Columbus and Sobukazi high and there will also be an oral hygiene initiative which is a toothbrush campaign in November, that is what we have lined up so far,” she said.
The Thorngrove Hospital staff members expressed their gratitude to Anthu foundation.
“A little if you have nothing means a lot, we are really grateful for what Anthu gave us. They might see it as a few items but they actually answered our prayers. These machines will enable us to improve the care for our patients because we are no longer using manually operated machines. This monitor checks blood pressure, pulse and respirations at once which makes our job a lot easier,” said Sister Nomazulu Dhlodhlo.
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