The Botswana Insurance Company (BIC) and The Botswana Society (TSB) have signed a 3-year partnership agreement in support of TBS’ long-standing Cultural Heritage Tourism project.

The agreement was signed by BIC’s Managing Director, Nziki Nganunu and TBS Honorary Secretary, Fred Morton.

Under the deal, the insurance giants has undertaken to finance and equip a full-time office employee at TBS and to provide BIC volunteers, for the purposes of expanding TBS’ operations and outreach, enhancing its cultural heritage website (www.botswanabeckons.com) and bringing on-stream the new Cultural Heritage Tour of Gaborone, which is due for launch in August 2014.

According to BIC Marketing & Strategy Development Manager, Komissa Burzlaff, this partnership represents the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) strategy of developing long-term partnerships to strengthen NGOs such as TBS while also moving them closer to self-sustainability.

 

“We elected to join with the Society,” said Burzlaff, because “the society has contributed to enriching the culture and heritage of Botswana by emanating the importance of keeping it alive, through comprehensive education and appreciation methods. The TBS also has the potential to become self sustaining and for BIC that is imperative. ”

 

BIC’s CSR objectives seek well-governed communities and NGOs which are relevant and make a difference in the lives of Batswana, and which BIC can assist with its volunteers. BIC is committed to the transformation, reconstruction and development of Botswana in the areas of Education, Health/Welfare, Road Traffic Safety, Crime Prevention, and Conservation & the Environment.

 

The Botswana Society, founded in 1968, is one of the oldest indigenous NGOs in the country, publishes annually a peer-review journal called the Botswana Notes and Records, holds public forums on national issues (in partnership with Livingstone Kolobeng College and the private news media), and has launched a Cultural Heritage Tourism project to bring Botswana’s youth into cultural tourism as entrepreneurs, all as part of its mission: “Researching, Recalling and Retelling Botswana’s Heritage.”

 

TBS’ chairperson Prof Bojosi Otlhogile has commented that “Our partnership with BIC takes us an important step closer to becoming a social enterprise, that is, a self-sustaining non-profit organisation that serves the nation. With additional partnerships, we foresee becoming a major player in the cultural heritage tourism industry of our country.” TBS records its heartfelt gratitude to BIC for this important gesture and looks forward to working closely with BIC and other like-minded businesses in developing Botswana to attain the Vision 2016 ideals.