Email

 enquiries@gaos.org.bw

Phone

+267 71251754 / 77453098

Location

Plot 157,Commerce Park, Gaborone, Botswana

Our Life Story

The Journey that became a Dream

Guardian Angel Orphans Society

What lead to the formation of GAOS (NGO) – Percy’s Life Story

Growing up as a child was arduous and not a walk in the park. My mind still entertains bitter-sweet memories of early childhood up to adolescence, because I went through hardships and indomitable challenges. I could presume that I have seen most of life’s woes. For instance, when I was growing up I had the painful experience of watching my mother struggling single-handedly to put food on the table. What exacerbated the situation was that she did not have the benefit of a fixed monthly income from permanent employment. What I am about to share with you is nothing divorced from the truth and not fiction: true to the minute detail based on every encounter that I can still recall to memory.

GAOS Founder Percy Madikwe

I know what is like to weep and weep without being heard, crying in your heart and no one coming to console you. As a child, at times you may not have the power temerity to say: “Please stop, you are hurting me or even ask somebody for help.” At times when you are

confronted with a crisis you may even think that God does not exist or He doesn’t care. This is how my life story begins “My name is Percy Madikwe and I am a man of 42 years of age, I am on the brink of middle age. I was raised by my mother, Dintle Madikwe, who died in 1998 of HIV/AIDS related complications. I am from a poor family that depended on revenue from

operating a shebeen or ‘spot’ as popular known, vending a range of alcoholic beverages.

We lived in an extended family, where violence from rowdy patrons was the order of the day. I also witnessed the suffering of my single parent mother and my matrilineal grandmother used to haggle over customers waiting to buy liquor, cigarettes or other items.These encounters over customers occurred because the former and latter were selling the same products from the same premises. As mentioned above, this demonstrated my late mother and grandmother’s business survival tactics. At times going for days without eating a decent meal, underscored the hardships we were going through. When we could

afford, we would at least eat porridge without relish or something light. Many-a-times when I got home from school, I would find our house smelling of burnt-out paraffin fumes from the paraffin stove, but no sign of food. Even though my grandmother used to haggle with my mother for customers, she had a good heart, because she used to share her plate of food with my mother. Other family members did not care about our suffering. Sometimes my siblings used to report to me that, their aunt would not give them food, without due notice. When it was lunch time, she would call her children, lock the door and give them food.

©Copyright Guardian Angel Orphans Society 2022, All Rights Reserved


Developed by AfroAgileSoft™ and Powered by BOCONGO.

×

Powered by WhatsApp Chat

× How can we help you?