Veteran golfer Washaya wins MAZ tourney

THE Financial Gazette’s senior sales executive, Christobel Washaya, won the Marketers Association of Zimbabwe (MAZ) Annual Charity Golf Tournament Grand Prize at the ZRP Golf Club last Friday.

Washaya, a seasoned golfer, shrugged off competition to land the coveted Agrippa Mugwagwa Floating Trophy. MAZ hosted the Annual Charity Golf tournament under the theme: Rescue Teens from Drug and Substance Abuse.

The charity golf day was organised by the MAZ Charity Foundation, an arm of MAZ. The charity golf day attracted golf players from various corporates. MAZ executive secretary Gillian Rusike lauded Lafarge and PPC for sponsoring bags of cement to be used to build the fowl run for the teenagers.

“… allow me to appreciate teen rescue mission for coming through with this initiative and I hope that this partnership will last longer. “As an association, we have decided to join the national fight against drug and substance abuse. This is a real scourge that requires a collective effort from all citizens and corporates at large,” Rusike said.

This year, Rusike said MAZ partnered with The Teen Rescue Mission Trust, a non-profit community-based organisation that focuses on teens and youths in areas of drug and substance abuse, premature sex, and teen crime both in urban and rural areas, with help of different organisations and sponsors. “We have hosted this event so that we raise funds for this cause. The target is to raise US$10 000 which will go towards the construction and facilitation of income generating projects on a piece of land the Trust acquired in the Seke area,” Rusike said.

He said the association believed in corporate social responsibility programmes, thus they had made it a mandate to keep on helping those in need. Teen Rescue Mission director, Abraham Matuka said that his organisation was grateful for the partnership with MAZ.

“We are working towards constructing structures for income generating projects at our stand in Seke and we would also want to start a chicken project which will be run by the youths, thereby keeping them busy as well as giving them a source of income. “It is mostly unemployment and idleness which drives them to drugs,” Matuka said.

“As an organisation which is fighting against the rise of the drug abuse pandemic, we are happy to have MAZ coming on board to empower these youths through projects to be set on the organisation stand.” He said the projects will go a long way in empowering the youths and community as well. Teen Rescue Mission members showcased their dancing skills to the marketers and golfers who came through. MAZ has over the years been involved in different corporate social responsibility initiatives including donating school shoes to Chokera Primary School in Masvingo in 2018 and Mathew Rusike in Epworth in 2019.