The National Employment Council for Funeral Industry (NECFI) has launched their inaugural fundraising golf initiative in a bid to raise funds for mental health and wellness support.
The golf event which is expected to be an annual event going forward is set to take place on May 9 at Chapman Golf Club in Harare.
At least 25 teams are expected to take part in the tournament which will follow a better ball stableford format.
“The objective of this charity golf tournament is to raise funds which will be channelled towards mental health and wellness. As we all know in the funeral industry there are a lot of stressors in that industry and you find that this initiative which is coming through the golf tournament is to raise those funds and this is like a collective idea which involves the whole nation of Zimbabwe,” chairman of the tournament organising committee chairperson Sydney Chakuchichi said.
“We are actually targeting at least 25 teams to participate on the day, but if you give me 40, I’ll be over excited. So basically that’s our target and for our teams, we are asking each team to contribute a minimum of US$200, but that’s not the limit. What we are saying is we’ve got different classes of sponsorship, we’ve got the platinum class, we’ve got the gold class, all the important minerals that we have in this country can be represented in the classes,” he added.
NECFI is a statutory body created out of the Labour Amendment Act 56 and it represents the employer and the employee to advance social justice and democracy in the workplace.
It also works to ensure fairness in terms of promoting employee standards and ensuring that there is expeditious resolution of disputes in the workplaces.
At the moment it has close to 40 members including Doves, Nyaradzo, Moonlight and Old Mutual among many other funeral service organisations.
“While the NEC funeral industry is driving this, this is an event which is open to all the other NECs, all the other companies. But being in a specific industry we need to ensure that also we are not living in a vacuum and as such we need to also attend to the issues that affect employers and employees and this issue of mental health has significantly affected our industry.
“In the end, we’d like to create that awareness and assist all NEC employers to know and be able also to render the necessary assistance. Since it is our first event we are looking to raise US$20 000 which will be channeled towards mental health facilities,” NECFI Independent chairperson Nhamo Kwaramba said.
