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By September 9, 2019Mountain Bike Challenge

Ngwenya Glass has donated the sum of E45 000.00 to the Swaziland Antivenom Foundation.
The funds were raised at the 9th annual Engen Ngwenya Glass Mountain Bike Challenge, organized and hosted by Ngwenya Glass.
Giving back to the local community and to charities and foundations throughout the Kingdom is very important to the Ngwenya Glass family.

The Eswatini Antivenom Foundation has been identified as one of the charities Ngwenya Glass supports. The work this Foundation and its volunteers selflessly do to alleviate the impact of snake encounters and snake bites in Eswatini is phenomenal.

Many of the victims of snake bite in Eswatini are children. While some succumb quickly to the devastating neurotoxicity caused by Black Mamba bites, others, bitten by Spitting Cobras or Puff Adders often suffer extensive local tissue injury, resulting in permanent disability, including the amputation of limbs.

The effects of these necrotic snakebites are horrifying, and profoundly confronting. The Eswatini Antivenom Foundation works on the principle that every victim of snakebite deserves help. Whether it be the gift of lifesaving antivenom, or the benefit of skilled reconstructive skin grafting, the Foundation want no local snakebite casualties to be left without assistance.

Interesting fact: Worldwide, every 4 minutes someone dies from snakebite and another 12 are permanently disabled.

Ngwenya Glass would like to thank our fellow MTB event sponsors for making this donation possible: Engen Eswatini, Momentum, FNB, Globeflight, Logico, Parmalat, Buy and Save Spar, Umbuluzi Farm Chickens, Montigny, Serec Radios, CleanTech Eswatini, Mbabane Motors, Mormond Electrical, Mountain Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, Nkonyeni Golf Estate, Gajitz, SWIFT, Swazi Trails, Big Game Parks Bulembu Water and Black Mamba Chilli.

Thea and Clifton with their small band of Snake Rescue volunteers have gone to extreme lengths to try and do something about the snakebite problems of Eswatini. These volunteers, some of them doctors, lawyers, business men and housewives have become accomplished snake catchers … risking their own lives to remove venomous snakes from homes, outbuildings and other places where people encounter them within their communities.

The Eswatini Antivenom Foundation also hosts an annual event at Simunye Country Club, focusing on the medical management of snakebite.
This year the event will take place on Friday 25th October. The program will be repeated on Saturday 26th October, for those who are unable to attend on the Friday.

The purpose of the Eswatini Snakebite Symposium is to involve as many enthusiasts, first responders, clinicians & medical practitioners to discuss all the aspects of snakebite. This is a multidisciplinary event, with the aim to finding unique solutions for the prevention and treatment of snakebite. There will be also be practical sessions, snakes on display, snake milking demonstrations and much more.

The program will include: Poisonous Plants of Eswatini. * Scorpions, Spiders and Centipedes. Characteristics of Swaziland’s Venomous Snakes * – Treating Snakebite successfully in the most rural of communities * Clinics & EMS – our first responders * Medical Management of Snakebite & Surgical Procedures * Wellcome Trust – Research projects that are changing the face of snakebite * Snakebite in Animals * W.H.O & the launch of the Roadmap *
Eswatini – Leading the way in snakebite treatment – New developments!*

Without support, the foundation will not be able to help the most desperate of members of our community. If you would like more information, please contract Thea Litschka-Koen:
swazilady@gmail.com or 7602 5088.

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