Mutual & Federal donates mobile library to Phinduzame Primary School
As a part of its continuous investment in education and development, Mutual & Federal’s Head of Responsible Business, Busisiwe Sithole officially handed over a mobile library to principal, Joseph Hlatswayo of the Phinduzame Primary School in Reitz, Free State on Friday.
The mobile library contains 1 400 books and can stock up to 5 000 books to benefit Phinduzame Primary school’s 1 160 learners and 33 educators. The library was donated as part of Mutual & Federal’s participation in the Nelson Mandela Library Project, under the ‘Participate for Good’-programme and was showcased during Old Mutual’s joBerg2C bike race that stopped over in Reitz last month. This marks the first year that Mutual & Federal is participating in the Nelson Mandela Library Project and is the very first joBerg2C library to be wholly funded by a corporate.
Phinduzame Primary school was established in 1975, but has never had a proper library, having used a storeroom as a makeshift library to keep their collection of books.
The first library to be donated through the joBerg2C initiative was donated in 2011. Money is continually being raised through proceeds from ‘Long Walk to Freedom’ initiative, events such as Old Mutual’s Joberg2C marathon, along with other corporate social investment sponsorships. With these funds, nine libraries have been donated to underprivileged schools thus far, and the Mutual & Federal library is the tenth mobile library that was sponsored through the joBerg2C initiative.
Sithole said, “The main objective of Mutual & Federal’s Responsible Business programme is to enable positive futures. Therefore, we hope this library will go a long way in encouraging the children of Reitz to change their lives through reading and create a positive future for many generations to come. We are also proud of the contribution our staff made through the Nakelela staff volunteerism programme by voluntarily donating a huge amount of additional stationery to go to each pupil at Phinduzame.”
