Owning the principle of charity beginning at home at Peo Legal

PEO LEGAL IS A 100% MOTSWANA, FEMALE-OWNED CORPORATE AND COMMERCIAL LAW FIRM BASED IN GABORONE. THE FIRM WAS ESTABLISHED IN 2018 WITH A STAFF COMPLEMENT OF 2 AND HAS OVER 3 YEARS GROWN TO A STAFF COMPLEMENT OF 11, INCLUDING 4 ATTORNEYS. THE FIRM’S PRACTICE AREAS INCLUDE CORPORATE AND COMMERCIAL, COMPETITION LAW, REGULATORY AND COMPLIANCE, ESTATE PLANNING, CONVEYANCING, AND DEBT COLLECTION. THE RESPONSIBLE CITIZEN MAGAZINE CAUGHT UP WITH CHABO PEO, PARTNER AT PEO LEGAL, TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE LAW FIRM, ITS MISSION AND COLLECTIVE CSR FRAMEWORK.

TRC: Start by introducing us to your company, brief background of your organization including the mission and values? CP: We are a client-centric firm and pride ourselves on our efficiency and responsiveness. Law as a business has evolved rapidly over the last few years; anyone can read the law but what makes us stand out in this market is our attentiveness to our clients’ needs and our ability to preempt clients’ needs and concerns. We are very good at that; we tailor-make all our solutions and ensure that our advice takes into consideration all implications for your business, whether legal, financial, reputational, or commercial.

Our goals remain unchanged: to add value, be accessible at all times, to provide service of the highest quality, and to plant roots in the community we serve. For me that community starts with the very people who work within our firm. It’s for this reason that each member of our team is encouraged to lead and drive our CSR projects. Each project must have a direct connection and value for someone within the firm in order for us to be fully committed to it. This has translated into us helping neighbours, schools within our jurisdiction and even the people within the building we work in. We take that “charity begins at home” maxim quite literally.

TRC: Explain the company’s CSR framework CP: Our CSR framework is premised on creating impact. Impact is defined as a ‘marked effect or influence,’ and marked means that there’s some ability to observe or ideally measure the effect. Therefore, there must be a tangible

and measurable effect or influence we can measure from everything we do. Sometimes it is immediate and sometimes it requires more commitment and patience. We do not involve ourselves in projects simply for the sake of it or for publicity. It is our responsibility to build our community and that is not something we take lightly.

TRC: What sectors of the economy does the company CSR initiatives target? Environmental Sustainability? Education? Community work? CP: Our initiatives are primarily people and community outreach focused. We are a business made up of people. It is therefore important for us to ensure that we plant back into the people we serve.

Each year we are mindful to make an impact. Pre-Covid we identified 4 families within the communities our staff exist in and supported them with food parcels. Sitting with each family, we were able to understand the specific needs but also to see where perhaps the type of help we thought they needed wasn’t their immediate need. That’s the thing with wanting to create an impact. Sometimes the need requires time commitment rather than financial commitment. We hope to restart this project before the end of the year.

Another fulfilling project was mentoring and sponsoring 4 young ladies from Ledumang Senior Secondary School to assist them with making up for lost lessons due to Covid – shift schooling. Listening to and seeing the palpable anxiety they had about their future was a very stressful time for us as a team. We are very proud to say of the 4 young ladies have been admitted into tertiary education and are well on their way to achieving their dreams.

TRC: What are some of your Current CSR initiatives CP: In partnership with Dreamers Avenue (Proprietary) Limited, we celebrated National Literacy Day in September by supporting 3 local schools with book donations. Tshiamo Pilane, an associate at the firm, addressed the students at Moselewapula Community Junior Secondary School on the impact of literacy on our lives. Tshiamo explained that literacy for her means “the ability to read and write” and alternatively “the ability to understand information” and how literacy has broadened her dreams and aspirations. She encouraged the students to challenge themselves to not only improve academic literacy within the school context, but to improve their cultural, legal, and financial literacy and to better understand the community and world we live in. Literacy can help you not only survive in this world but to improve the quality of your life. It Is inspiring to watch a young professional speak so convincingly on the power of literacy. We are very proud of Tshiamo and support her in the many plans she has for this school. I am a strong believer in the power of reading and books, especially for a young mind. Growing up, I was surrounded by readers. Both my parents are avid readers and so reading culture was encouraged in our household. I read everything and anywhere from a very young age. It’s the greatest tool to broaden your perspective or give you perspective if there’s none to broaden and plant the “you can be anything you want to be” seed in your mind. Even as a young adult, sitting in Francistown buried in Great Expectations or some other read, I knew I was not limited by my circumstances or geographic location, the world was mine for the taking.

That is what we want to develop in the younger generation today. We have plans to donate a library to a primary school and to more importantly develop a reading program within that school where our staff and clients may volunteer and teach a child to read, in Setswana and English. That child’s possibilities become endless the moment they are able and comfortable to read, you could be unlocking an engineer, lawyer, banker, artist, with that single hour you spend every Friday teaching them to read.

TRC: What impact has the Covid19 pandemic had on the company’s CSR initiatives? CP: Our projects require face to face contact for the most part and we were therefore not able to achieve as much as we had hoped to. This was a result of not just the restrictions on movement for us but an increased difficulty with connecting with necessary people in offices and schools especially. We hope the worst is behind us and we can get back on course.

TRC: Can you take us through what you believe the impact of your CSR initiatives has been on the firm’s brand and profitability? Brand awareness is the most immediate benefit I can think of from a public perspective. For me and for our staff it’s not about brand awareness or profitability. It’s a fulfilling sense of making a difference, something that doesn’t directly translate to impact for the business.