BNOC LAUNCHES SMS DONATION CAMPAIGN

BY:Phodiso Gaebepe

GABORONE:. Botswana National Olympic Committee (BNOC) successfully launched Toyko 2020 SMS donation campaign today at Travel Lodge.

BNOC SMS Donation is a new strategy of find raising towards the athlete who will be participating in the coming Olympic games. This is due to the experiences over the past Olympics where athlete struggle with some needs like proper facilities for training, proper diets that they are required to eat and many more.

To curb the situation, the sms campaign strategy was introduced so that a lot of these needs may be taken care of.

It is public knowledge that there are less funds in Botswana especially for sporting activities and the private companies are reluctant in participating or sponsoring sport codes.

According  to the Marketing and Communications committee member Billy Sekgororoane, there are plenty of challenges in fund raising.

He said we are aware of the traditional method of fund raising  where one would write letters to the corporate and asking for donations of 5 million pula or 1 million pula.

This takes a lot of time and the results are not normally forth coming as quickly as one would have thought.

Sekgororoane stated that they thought of coming up with a easy way of raising funds by utilizing the technical space. 

They partnered with VIB mobile to do so. Initially the plan was to go for the one that you have to sms and stand a chance to win, unfortunately the regulations stood on their way.

One regulator had to warn them that for them to practice that they have to be licences and they had no choice but to opt for the one that one has to donate an sms. You basically send an sms to a particular number.

” if you actually think about how we are targeting, I mean the mobile penetration in this country is very high. We have more than 2 million mobile phones registered in this country. With a target of 2.5 million pula, to be raised this year, if each mobile phone sends one SMS, we would have over achieved by 500%. So please let us embrace this, let us publicise this campaign.  We are launching it today and I suppose a lot of people will start trying to it today after it is fully introduced. .”Said Sekgororoane.

When taking the stage, the Assistant Minister of Youth Empowerment Sport and Culture Development Honourable Philip Dikgang Makgalemele said it is a good campaign in which all Batswana should embrace.

It is an effort that helps in sport and athlete development. Makgalemele promised that he too will support it and help by sharing it in his social media platforms.  He also promised that he will try and donate an SMS every week into this campaign.

Makgalemele urged all Batswana to continue to share this BNOC SMS campaign in their social media platforms like him to make it famous .

” it is indeed a pleasure for me to be launching the Botswana National Olympic committee efforts to raise funds towards the preparations for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic games. Advanced games preparations are very crucial to ensure adequate level of readiness to compete and qualify for the games . This gives athletes an opportunity to focus on the ultimate goal of reaching the podium first.”Said Makgalemele.

The process is very simple and quick. VIB mobile representative Mr Leroy Monaheng demonstrated how the process is done.

He said for one to donate an SMS to BNOC, he/She had to send TeamBw to 16789. A response will show which shows that you have donated and how many have already donates before you. This helps in showing you how much is already donates.  The SMS costs P5 across all networks. It is not limited to any network.

Team Botswana will be expected to assemble a strong team to Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
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