05 Jun 2024

 Two of the pioneers of the Botswana Ignite project enrolled in the television academy say it has been an eye opener for them and a new experience learning from the professionals. 

Thato Kaluluka and Jayson Kesego are part of the 21 students who seized the opportunity presented by government through collaboration with the Steve Harvey Global to enhance their creative skills. 

“This television programme is entirely new, but I have background in photography and writing,” said Kesego. 

Kesego said he always wanted to engage in the medium of television for the longest time and therefore he could not let the opportunity pass by.   Kaluluka, who has a background in cinematography with a degree in motion picture medium and a major in cinematography, said she joined the programme to learn more about the unscripted reality, which was a new concept in Botswana. 

“So far the experience has been great; we are facilitated by the best in the film industry in Africa and the world, and we hope to learn more and apply it to our Botswana context as we produce our own,” said Kaluluka. 

Some of the programme facilitators have worked on the British Broadcast Commission (BBC) and Netflix including the most successful productions in South Africa such as The River. 

Kesego added that the facilitators were bringing such amount of knowledge wealth and they appreciated it. 

 “We are always on our feet learning new things and technical side of this industry, and most importantly, we are learning to work as teams with other students,” he said. 

Currently, the students are learning theory. However they went on location for an hour shoot for their short non-fiction or fiction film about the programme. 

And for Kaluluka, the task was easier as she used some of the experience from her background. 

“We are all creative at the end of the day, and because we work as a team, we managed to complete the task within the time given.  

We did not take long, because we all knew what was expected in this task and all of us contributed to the success of the assignment,” he said. 

Kaluluka further said after completing the five months course, they would ignite back what they learnt from this initiative. 

“My one goal is to make Batswana consume local as much as they can. The intention is to create local content that Batswana will appreciate and want to watch on their screens and livestream platforms,” she said. 

Sharing his colleague’s sentiments, Kesego said they also aspire to create stories that would be exported and shared with the rest of the world to show what Botswana could offer. 

“We have the love for our country and we also want to share our story with the world in that regard. Botswana has the ability of arts and culture that can bring the world’s attention to Botswana,” he said, adding that the initiative would contribute to their livelihood whilst visibly putting Botswana in the global creative space. 

Both Kaluluka and Kesego believe that with collaboration, the creative industry could grow in leaps and bounds and successfully contribute to the economic growth of this country. 

They implored all creatives to bring a collaborative mind to the table to grow the industry.

 “We have a small industry with bigger opportunities, so everyone has a share of the pie. Let us eliminate the competitive mind-set and collaborate,” they said. ENDS