The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has responded to a call from the government of Botswana for society to rally together in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic with a donation of personal protective equipment to the value of 2.5 million Pula (227,000 US dollars).
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The Health and Wellness Minister of Botswana, Dr Edwin Dikoloti met with Church leaders in Gaborone, Botswana to receive the donation. It included 12,000 disposable scrub suits and several thousand face shields, gloves and heavy-duty aprons to be used by frontline health workers.
Dr Dikoloti expressed “profound gratitude” to the Church for its donation as Botswana’s battle with COVID-19 intensifies.
Following the government’s appeal for assistance, “as a Church, we engaged the Health and Wellness ministry to identify critical needs,” explained the Stake President in Gaborone, Oduetse Shaka Mokweni. “The needs identified were a shortage of PPE for frontline professionals and a lack of face masks for marginalised primary school kids in some schools.”
While the Church organized the PPE equipment through its Humanitarian Services, funded by donations from members throughout the world, local members in Gaborone joined together to support the effort with their own hands.
Eleven congregations across the capital collectively sewed about 8,000 masks. These were “handed to the Ministry of Health and some directly to identified schools,” President Mokweni said.
He added that the donation has “come at the right time, when the situation is worsening.”
Whilst Botswana initially managed to contain its infection rate, COVID-19 cases have taken a sharp upward turn since October. Almost 21,000 positive cases have now been confirmed in a country with a population of about 2.4 million people.
Elder Clement Matswagothata, an Area Seventy leader for the Church said at the handover event that the mindset of pulling together for the common good “starts in our homes.“
“It starts in our families. It affects our communities in which we live. It … has the ability to make a difference in countries and the world at large.”
Elder Matswagothata said that each member of society needed to grow their understanding of what it means to be a neighbour.
“As a church, as a people, as a nation, we must ask ourselves a question: who is our neighbour? Our neighbour is everyone. It is … what we truly are: God’s children.”