17 Apr 2017

More than 45 multi-national students from the University of HEC Paris in France visited Divine Morula Company at Local Enterprise Authority’s Fulcrum Incubators in Pilane.

The  students who are pursuing a master’s programme and will soon be completing their programme on Sustainability and Social Innovation, said they chose Botswana because they wanted to know and understand how the country used its resources to help businesses.

Speaking during the visit on Wednesday, leader of the group, Mr Trevor Shah said they were on a week-long trip to Botswana to learn how entrepreneurship was being carried out here.

He said they came on Sunday and had already visited NGOs around Gaborone and would also like to visit Debswana.

Mr Shah said they were inspired by the idea behind the business which among others empowered women and helped them establish their own businesses.

He further said the students would also get first-hand information as they were also interested in learning about how the business was run and the processes that it went through, and will make a report which many others will have access to.

When addressing the students, Ms Matilda Mpai, a retired home economics teacher also a former non-formal education instructor said she discovered a better way of working with this indigenous morula fruit which was in abundance in the country.

Divine Morula, Ms Mpai said was a company that made morula fruit juice and was currently housed at Pilane Local Enterprise Authority Incubation Unit.

Though morula is seasonal and only available from January to April each year Ms Mpai said they stock piled the pulp which they used throughout the year till the next season.

“From the pulp we produce our jam, we also produce juice and our products are rich in morula taste,” Ms Mpai explained.

She said she also ran another sister company called Devine Scents which produced beauty products adding that they used morula nut oil which they extracted from morula nut.

“Research has shown that the oil provides longer lasting hydration and helps prevent wrinkles as the oil also has anti-aging properties. It is good for the skin and hair because of its fast absorbency. We then use the oil to make beauty products: lip balm, body scrub, body lotions, and soap and tissue oil,” Ms Mpai elaborated.

She said her major challenge had been lack of machinery to produce more and meet demand.

In his welcome remarks, Pilane incubator manager Mr Fana Kelebogile told the students that LEA was established to carry out the mandate of entrepreneurship and enterprise development in Botswana.

He said LEA empowered entrepreneurs to start and grow their businesses and this was done through business advisory services, training and mentoring, business incubation, market access and also help facilitate access to finance. BOPA