12 Nov 2014

More people are now enrolling in the poverty eradication projects to better their lives. Ms Matshwenyego Thumba is one of such people.

The mother of three runs a backyard tree nursery in Makuta after she visited the Social and Community Development (S&CD) office in Nswazwi to register to be assisted under the poverty eradication scheme. 

Her initial choice was to rear goats and she was chosen as one of the beneficiaries and went for an awareness workshop at Nswazwi for a week in 2011.  She stated that they were provided with information on different projects to choose from by the Department of Forestry and Range Resources (DFRR). 

Equipped with the information, she said she decided to choose the backyard tree nursery as she had developed the love for flowers from a tender age and knew a lot about taking care of them.  She said she went for a second workshop at DFRR offices where they were taught how to plant trees and care for them. 

Furthermore, she stated that they were taught business and management skills, which include bookkeeping and stock recording. In March 2014, she was chosen to showcase and teach others about tree nursery at Jamataka village during the poverty eradication Pitso. 

She said she used the opportunity to benchmark on others with the similar projects and managed to sell all her trees and also get some from fellow beneficiaries.  Ms Thumba said the Pitso gave her a chance to market her business as she managed to get clients who still continue to buy some of her trees. 

When you enter Ms Thumba’s nursery, you can see her love for trees as the nursery is full of colorful plants of different sizes.  The plants include; moneymaker, elephant ear, Purple Heart, red heart, desert plants and a lot of climbing trees. 

She said that she was given a shade net, a 5000 litre water tank, gardening tools, wheel barrow, seeds and water connection by the DFRR to start her nursery. 

In addition, she noted that she was only given pepper tree and delonix regia seeds and she asked for seedlings from different people in the village and managed to make more seedlings, which she then transferred to flower pots.

She said all her plants are sold at a cheap prize of P20 per plant except the elephant ear plant which she sells at P200.  Ms Thumba also hires out her plants to people to decorate during events such as weddings, birthday’s parties and workshops. 

She said that she charges them P20 for each plant looking at the fact that they assist her with marketing.  The plant woman mentioned that she also gets jobs to plant trees for people at their homes and teach them how to take care of them to get good results. 

Ms Thumba talks a lot about the moneymaker plant, saying that the plant symbolizes how one uses money in life.  She stated that the plant blooms if one uses money wisely but shrinks when one misuses money and a lot of people love the plant and she makes a lot of profit from it. 

The other plant that is common amongst her customers is the elephant ear, which is believed to symbolize one’s love for plants.  Ms Thumba said she has learnt a lot since starting her tree nursery and now knows which plants are more profitable, good for Botswana weather and better ways to care for them. 

Ms Thumba said that the DFRR continues to visit her and advise her accordingly and just like other businesses, she also experience challenges in her business. The main challenge she faced is water shortage as they can go for a week without water in the whole village. 

She also said that the hot weather is a disadvantage as most of her plants die and only bloom during the rainy season.  Ms Thumba has managed to save some of the money from her plants and used it to put bread on the table for her children and buy fence to use at the lands. ENDS