Council, Kwimbira cheer patients at Zomba Hospital

The Malawi National Council of Sports and reigning sports personality of the year Bernadettar Kwimbira-Nzika on Saturday cheered patients at Zomba Central Hospital (ZCH) where they donated hampers worth K1 million.

Sports Council and the celebrated female Fifa assistant referee each contributed K500 000 towards the cause.

Kwimbira-Nzika, whose reign ends in March, said she thought it wise to assist the patients as a way of thanking God for making her excel in 2018.

“The Almighty God bestowed me with blessings last year and it was one way of thanking Him for that.

“My tenure as the reigning sports personality of the year is also coming to an end and I felt this would be a perfect parting shot,” she said.

One of the council’s board members, Rodrick Chiwaya, said they came up with the initiative as a charity cause which the sports personality will be involved in.

“Last year, we introduced sports awards and as part of that initiative, the sports personality awardee will be involved in charity causes and we felt this would be the appropriate time,” he said.

Chiwaya said this will be an ongoing initiative.

Sports Council administration manager Henry Mereka said having launched the sports awards last year, they wanted to connect the awardees to the public.

“The winners come from the communities and we want to make them relevant to the public, thereby demonstrating the power of sport.

“Initially, the initiative was supposed to start earlier, but we had some hiccups. However, as we go on, we would like to see our sports personality doing more of charity work,” he said

The hospital’s senior nursing officer Tawonga Chitaya thanked Sports Council for the gesture.

Said Chitaya: “This is a referral hospital and some patients come from as far as Machinga and Phalombe with little or no help. So, we appreciate Sports Council’s gesture and we appeal to others to emulate that.”

Sports Council executive secretary George Jana and sports development manager Ruth Mzengo were part of the council’s delegation.