De Beers Venetia Mine donated educational toys to various Early Childhood Development (EDC) Centres within the Blouberg and Musina areas. The presentation took place at the Musina Nancefield municipal offices last Wednesday.

The initiative is a brainchild of the Venetia Mine Diamond Business Systems Workshop. The workshop was aimed at improving working systems and productivity at Venetia Mine. The team that came up with a brilliant presentation was rewarded with R5 000 that they could donate to any charity organization of their choice.

The winning team comprised Billy Maphaha, Gary Barlow and Ben Viljoen. These generous Venetians therefore resolved to purchase educational toys that were donated to the ECDs.

Commenting on the aim of this initiative, a representative of the winning team, Billy Maphaha, said that as a team they are passionate about children and felt it proper that they invest in the children’s future. "Children are our future and they deserve to be loved, nurtured and brought up in a responsible manner. We thought it would be better to invest in the education of our children because we have a role to play, to make them future responsible adults."

A representative of the Musina ECD forum, Mrs Joko Mokoditoa, thanked these generous Venetia Mine employees for their support. "This will make our work with children a lot easier. We initially had shortage of the toys but we are happy because we now know that there are people who care out there. Thank you, Venetia Mine employees, a thousand times. We appreciate what the Venetia Mine employees did for us and we would like to thank the company for instilling such a spirit of giving amongst its employees."