18 Aug 2015

Boikago Society is a unique group as it is made up of 12 women who are either divorced, widowed or are living with disabilities.

Each member of the society, all of whom are Rakops residents, strives to promote and revive culture by making traditional dolls and hosting cultural activities in the village annually.

In an interview recently, Nkisang Robert, who is the society’s chairperson, said their society was registered in 2012 with the help of Henrietta Pausgrouva from one of the European countries.

She said the latter paid the registration fee and donated second hand clothes for them to sell. They used the money to buy a sewing machine and fabrics to make traditional dolls.

Robert, 50, said their main customers apart from lodges were tourists who buy a lot of their products, especially dolls that  are designed carrying babies on their back, those of pregnant women and those on donkey saddles.

She said Henrietta visited the project and appreciated the dolls and participated in the cultural event. The chairperson further explained that they have activities such as women-meet-women conference, maize pounding, firewood walking, African nights and choirs.

As they have no place to hold cultural activities, every year a member volunteers to use her home for such activities, including mini exhibitions. Robert said during women-meet-women conferences, they host women from European countries and discuss issues that affect them as women such as how to raise children and financial management.

Furthermore, the chairperson said during firewood walking women make firewood using grass and wood from trees found in the village, which they bring to the scene carrying on their heads. From then they cook traditional food.

During the night of the event, folk stories are narrated to tourists followed by traditional choirs. For her part, the treasurer of Boikago Society, Leungo Morapedi said the society business could be more profitable if it was not for lack of markets.

She went on to state that materials they use to make dolls were expensive, and that although they wish to take part in government initiatives aimed at empowering women, they lack knowledge of how to access them. ENDS