29 Jun 2015

Kweneng West is among areas hardest hit by poverty in Botswana, which fact is also a function of high unemployment.

As a result government poverty eradication packages have become a honey pot for residents in the Kweneng West belt as they stimulate socio-economic life.

Twenty year-old Olga Tshenolo of Khekhenye makes a living by providing catering services for three government sponsored groups and makes a profit of roughly P3 800 a month.

The Junior Certificate holder is now able to provide for her family, among others, buying clothing for her children.

As a way of sustaining herself beyond the programme, she managed to invest her monthly earnings to fund her tuck-shop, which has employed another young person.

Tshenolo plans to grow her business to the level where it can now supply destitute persons, the sick and orphans under the social welfare programmes with food.

She now wants to upgrade her JC grades by enrolling with BOCODOL. Already, she has bought school material for subjects she wants to upgrade.

Tshenolo says young persons should utilise the programme and change their lives for the better, by investing earnings from poverty eradication to develop themselves and their families.

However, she says for the programme to succeed, social workers should assist beneficiaries with start-up capital, since most of the people engaged are poor or under resourced.
She says normally those engaged for catering services resort to taking loans with huge interest rates hence beneficiaries lose out in the process.

Another beneficiary, Kefilwe Matshwae, who is in her second month in the programme, says she is also inteds enrolling with BOCODOL in nearby Takatokwane or Kang to further her studies.

She says escalating food prices versus the stagnant purchase ceiling by government is likely to defeat the good intentions of the programmes. She intends to one day operate her own vegetable tuck-shop because. So far, there is no such business in Khekhenye and its neighbouring areas. Ends