The Sunday News
IN Acts 20 verse 35 of the Holy Bible, in his farewell to the Ephesians, Paul said: “In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.” This verse rang into one of Matabeleland South Province’s renowned and astute businessman, Mr Trynos Nkomo’s mind when he ventured into business over three decades ago and it has stuck to him since then.
Mr Nkomo is a successful property developer and one of the country’s most flourishing and experienced gold miners. It was during his reign as the Zimbabwe Miners Federation president that the Government realised the importance of small-scale and artisanal miners in turning around the country’s economy.
However, as a devoted Christian, Mr Nkomo realised that he had to share even the little he realised from his business empire with the less privileged members of the society and this forced him to come up with a social ministry department funded by one of his mining companies, Bunny’s Luck 2 Mine 10 years ago.
“Impacting positively on the welfare of the less privileged, the orphans and perhaps, the elderly requires a great deal of sincerity, love and care and most importantly, fear of God as well as to a very large extent, patience on the part of the particular individuals behind the initiative,” said Mr Nkomo.
The social ministry department is administered and headed by Pastor Vimbisai Moyo, with 14 years experience in ministering with the assistance of Ms Precious Siziba. It has over the years been devotedly catering for the needs of eight people living with disability of which six are visually impaired. Four of them are from Gwanda, two from Beitbridge and the other two from Bulawayo.
“Since we opened the social ministry department we have enrolled eight people living with disabilities into our programme.
Among these people there is one from Bulawayo who became disabled after an accident and holds a degree in Sound Engineering. We want to assist him to realise his goal.
“We are not out to look for donors but we want to share whatever we realise from our business with the less privileged members of society. We have, however, from time to time made donations in various forms to other less privileged members of the community that are not part of our community,” Mr Nkomo said.
With companies generally operating at below capacity levels and realising borderline profits, it is refreshing to find that the spirit of social corporate investment remains non-negotiable for Mr Nkomo who continues to assist people living with disabilities and lack social advantages, as a way of giving back to the community which has kept his business efforts afloat.
“The organisation has been of great assistance to us as it has been paying part of my children’s fees. The eldest will be doing Form Four next year (this year) and the other one will be doing Grade Four. We largely survive from the little cash my husband gets through begging in the city centre,” said Ms Maryjoice Sibanda whose husband, Mr Henry Chiteke is disabled and makes ends meet through begging in Bulawayo’s Central Business District.
The couple has three children with the youngest one nine-months-old and resides at Makokoba high-density suburb.
“Although we are grateful of what we are getting from this organisation, our wish was to have the support extended to payment of rent because we struggle to raise the money,” Ms Sibanda said.
Mr Nkomo said plans are underway to spread the programme to other areas within the southern part of the country.
“At the moment we are concentrating on Matabeleland South but we will soon roll out the programme to other areas. We have one visually impared man whom we want to assist in Zvishavane.
“We intend to build a standard rural home for him as well as offer him other basics required in a rural home set-up such as livestock and farming implements and even start a poultry project for him,” said Mr Nkomo.
Two weeks ago Bunnys Luck 2 Mine’s social ministry department donated groceries worth about $500, maize seed, four cellphones worth $100 each and $100 to three visually impaired people and one disabled person in Filabusi at the end of the Insiza North constituency Unity Cup final. The match was again sponsored to the tune of $1 200 by the mining company.
“(Mr) Trynos Nkomo hosted a soccer match in my area of jurisdiction on Unity Day. Before the match started he asked councillors that were present to bring the disabled and visually impaired people in their areas and I happened to come with one, Mary Dhliwayo.
“She was given a food hamper and a cellphone. I was asked what else will she need going forward and I suggested that she will definitely need clothes and food. We hope they will continue giving support to her and others with various forms of disabilities because such people struggle to fend for themselves,” said Ward 15 councillor Thembinkosi Ngwenya.
“We are looking forward to extending our helping hand to those that live in the streets whom society discards as vagabonds.
We want to get them off the streets by financially equipping them to start various projects. We believe through this programme we are going to touch a lot of souls,” said Mr Nkomo. The benevolent businessman also offers loans to Small and Medium Enterprises in West Nicholson through a fund run by his other mine Bunny’s Luck D.
“We offer loans ranging from $200 to $500 each to groups of 10 people operating flea markets at West Nicholson. We also extend the offer to those operating innovative mobile payment facilities such as EcoCash because we believe these people need to be financially capacitated to grow their business and we also believe they have the capacity to remit.
“The alarming rate of poverty in our society today, in addition to the undesirable circumstances that surrounds many individuals, particularly the orphans and those that are suffering from one form of perpetual health deformity to the other, calls for passionate concern by the relevant Government’s authorities, corporate organisations and well meaning individuals,” said Mr Nkomo.
