18 Dec 2024

Women in business have been urged to invest in children so that they can acquire the necessary skills and information needed to succeed in their chosen career paths.

The call was made by the Minister of Minerals and Energy, Ms Bogolo Kenewendo recently during Women in Business Association (WIBA) interactive session.

She said investing in children could help them to believe in their dreams, have improved ability to grow, learn and rise out of poverty.

Some children, she said, were faced with challenges at homes hence  the need to support them to go to school to break the vicious cycle of inequity and poverty.

“Investing in children does not take much but a little support to believe in them. Investing in children can lead to healthier, more educated and more productive adults and eventually changed communities,” she added.

Ms Kenewendo shared that when she finished her tertiary education in 2009 from University of Botswana, she was not sure what to do with her degree and her life. But in 2010, she was fortunate to meet First Lady of the United States of America, Ms Michelle Obama and told her that there was a gap of intergenerational mentorship and that she wanted to create a space for that particularly to offer a career guidance and coaching.

This, she said, led to the creation of Molaya Kgosi Women Leadership and Mentorship Programme, which was led by young Batswana women.

The purpose of the programme was to expose young women to be experienced and successful women in the country. The programme acted as a bridge to close the gap between generations, promoting intergenerational dialogue on career and leadership as well as presenting a great mentorship opportunity.

Ms Kenewendo said through the programme, she wanted to create a space where women could share experiences on how they sustained themselves through their careers and how they got started.

On its 10^th anniversary in 2020, she received and responded to a Facebook message from a young mother in Mogoditshane, who said that she found herself three weeks after giving birth without diapers and food and she had nowhere to find assistance.

“Since we were stuck in the middle of COVID-19 pandemic, we started sending her all food packages and all she needed for the child. Couple of days later we received many requests from many others asking for food,” she added.

Some months later, Ms Kenewendo said they received several messages and reports from parents in the tourism space who had been laid off due to the negative effects brought by the pandemic which had resulted in some facilities shutting down.

Their worry, she said, was how would they care for the school going children since they had no salary, and in response to that they asked teachers to identify children whose parents were facing that predicament because some had promising futures and if they were to be invested in, they could do well.

“We decided to invest in these children with subsistence scholarships and I am happy that majority ended up at universities, some completed tertiaries with flying colours while some have unique stories to tell,” she added.

The minister said that was an indication that children had passion to learn and needed somebody to believe in them as well as support them. 

She appealed to parents to ensure children were educated since education was the solution to everything. ENDS