When Nana Mkhwanazi of Absa in Polokwane heard on local radio station Capricorn FM that there were 40 students in the English class at the University of Limpopo who could not afford dictionaries, she sent out an email to her colleagues.

The result was that female employees of Absa donated the money and the dictionaries were handed over to the lecturer, Mr Ben Mphahlele, on 19 May 2010.

In her address at the handover, Nana explained it as follows:

It all started one evening when I was driving from Guateng listening to Thabiso Kotane’s talk show on Capricorn FM where he had Mr Ben Mphahlele, a Lecturer from the University of Limpopo, as a guest on studio.

Mr Mphahlele was pleading and begging people to assist with purchasing 40 English Dictionaries for University Students who could not afford one and also because he was struggling with teaching them the subject without disctionaries.

There are some people who called in and promised to buy them, but it was disturbing to hear Thabiso on radio on Friday 14th May 2010 advising that the promise had not been fullfilled, as I was again travelling I decided I would go to Capricorn FM first before going home to get Mr Mphalele’s contact numbers. By then I knew I wanted to organise women to contribute towards buying these dictionaries.

I then called Mr Mphahlele advising him what I was planning to do and that I needed two weeks. That same evening I wrote an e-mail to women of ABSA who responded and also forwarded the same to more women of ABSA, as I had requested that we keep it as an “Imbokodo” initiative.

I only requested them to donate an English Dictionary from their own pockets, to my surprise by Monday I was able to call Mr Mphahlele as we had collected contributions for 40 Dictionaries from ABSA women.

It was easy for me as we work for an organisation that encourages us to “Give As You Earn”.