For the past two years, Tiscan, Cotecna’s subsidiary in Tanzania, has donated school uniforms, school bags, books and exercise books to orphans from Makangarawe and Chang'ombe in Dar es Salaam. These children, between the ages of 3 and 16, are raised by custodians (mostly grandmothers) who have very limited financial resources. Children are not able to attend school unless they wear a uniform and buy their own books. Tiscan also donated essential supplies such as rice, beans, oil, sugar, soap and mosquito nets to their custodians.

The beneficiaries were identified by the Tanzania Women and Children Welfare Centre (TWCWC), an independent non-profit organization whose mission is to contribute and promote women and children’s welfare rights from all communities, through comprehensive social welfare services in a self empowering environment.

This action is part of Tiscan’s Corporate Social Responsibility programme which is to not only contribute to the Tanzanian people’s welfare through the major contribution of the company’s services to the national economy, but also through social support in the areas of water, health and education.

For Christmas 2009, Cotecna donated a further 500 school kits, including pens, books and school bags to FCA, which in turn distributed them to the children who needed them most. The ceremony at which these kits were donated was attended by the President of the Foundation, First Lady Madame Antoinette Sassou Nguesso.