Youthful singer and guitarist Patience Namadingo on Saturday launched his foundation which will be focused on education.
The artist decided to celebrate the launch of the Patience Namadingo Foundation at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre where he, alongside friends, cheered the sick and donated items such as Mahewu drink, orange squash and sugar worth K400,000.
Namadingo and friends which included fellow musician Gwamba visited the men’s ward.
One of the patient’s Willy Konyani hailed Namadingo and the foundation for visiting them at the hospital.
“We are thankful to Patience Namadingo and his foundation for this gesture. Many patients come to the hospital without guardians and they are in need for various necessities such as food. We urge others to emulate them,” said Konyani.
Namadingo, who has soared since releasing his latest album Lero and recently released a music video for his song, Sinjenjemela which has won him the hearts of people said whilst companies and different other stakeholders celebrate launch of foundations with parties, he thought of cheering the sick.
“I thought the best way of celebrating the launch of the foundation was to cheer the sick. I would like to thank friends who came in large numbers to be part of this celebration and most importantly take time to pray for the sick,” said the musician.
He said the foundation was on a mission and that it wants to play a role in supporting secondary school students who are brilliant but cannot afford to pay school fees.
“Recently, there was a story on the radio where they reported that a student had dropped out of school because he could not afford to pay school fees and had started a bicycle business to raise money,” said Namadingo.
The Msati Mseke, hit maker said there are brilliant students out who need support.
“You don’t need a million to assist needy students, there are students who need books, mathematical instruments, uniforms and so, from the little I make in music I thought I should help through a foundation which I have wanted to set up long time ago but now I am happy it’s a dream come true,” said the musician.
He said as artists they also have a role to play to change somebody’s life adding that the foundation will be identifying needy students in different schools.
“We will not be supporting the whole school but we will be identifying needy students and again schools can write us if they identify brilliant students who are needy. This is what this foundation wants to do because if you educate the nation then you are going the right direction,” he said.
With some quarters raising eyebrows with the musicians’ money which has recently seen him making huge donations of K200,000 and K300,000 during launches of his fellow artists Lulu and Theo Thomson respectively, Namadingo maintained that the money for his foundation was coming from his music.
“My music makes money and I should say it here that I have been making close to K1.5 million in a single show. This year has been a blessed year for me as I have made a lot of money,” said the singer, who leaves for the United States of America alongside Edgar ndi Davis and Giddes Chalamanda this month end.
Some people have tagged Namadingo’s source of funding to Prophet Sheppard Bushiri, who Namadingo has said is his personal friend.
But the musician maintained that his music makes money and that it was the one which was oiling the foundation.
“I would like to thank people for taking their time to buy my music and I urge them to continue buying my original music,” said Namadingo.
The artist recently also came out to say that apart from music he is also into property management.
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