18 Jan 2016

Chanoga community in collaboration with the department of agriculture has started a horticulture pilot project at an area where the poverty eradication seminar was held.

The 12-hectare land was allocated to the community after Kgosi Oateng Setlhodi requested it from the government with the aim to start sustainable projects that could better the lives of women.

He was concerned that women were hard hit by poverty and hoped that they could use the land to start income generating projects.

In an interview, the Village Development Committee chairperson, Mr Philemon Dicheleketo, confirmed that they were a step ahead in realising their dreams of improving lives.

He said they had allocated the department of agriculture two hectares and they had fenced a hectare and five plots had been ploughed and hoped the community would be able to buy fresh vegetables from the garden.

Mr Dicheleketo said the department was supposed to source water from the river but at the moment, they were bowsing, but were to finalise logistics to get water from the river.

The chairperson also appreciated that residents were striving hard towards reviving the spirit of self reliance, volunteerism and to reduce the dependency syndrome on government assistance.

He said since the 2013 seminar, over 200 people had benefited from poverty eradication packages and the projects were excelling.

Furthermore, Mr Dicheleketo pointed out that most of the beneficiaries were young people and decried lack of operation space. 

He said most youth showed interest to apply for the available programmes after the village leadership conducted a one week entrepreneurial skills and development training seminar in partnership with Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) targeting 120 youths from Chanoga and its catchment areas.

The main objective of the seminar was to help illuminate the path of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and those who were out of school since they were facing a bleak future of unemployment and poverty.

“The numbers of beneficiaries really indicate that the seminar was an eye opener to many villagers who mostly lived in abject poverty and now we are very proud as it has changed the image of our village for the better,” he added.

Mr Dicheleketo said they realised that young people were not business minded hence they were dragging their feet to take advantage of available youth programmes in place. After the workshop, he said about 20 young people applied for Youth Development Fund (YDF) and are still waiting for response. 

Meanwhile, in a recent interview, Kgosi Setlhodi said they had three projects in the pipeline but the community was still struggling with finances to develop the land. 

He mentioned some of the projects to be undertaken such as a cultural village, camp site and horticulture project which had already started.

He said efforts are being made to look for ways and means to be economically independent to sustain the future of the community giving priority to the needy society.

Kgosi Setlhodi revealed that residents had some challenges to tap into other poverty eradication initiatives in place such as back yard gardening because of shortage of water hence they opted to venture into horticulture which would source water from the river. Ends