20 Nov 2018

 Youth Empowerment Society (YES) has managed to live up to expectations over the 10 years of its existence. 

Celebrating its 10^th anniversary recently, the organisation that seeks to contribute towards developing young people by empowering them to realise and fully utilise their capabilities, looked back with pride at the several achievements it has registered since inception in 2008.

Giving a background of the organisation, one of its founding members, Mr Kabelo Mosebi said their journey had been a rewarding experience whose outcome had been appreciated by many.

Mr Mosebi noted that YES was formed by a group of Batswana students studying in Canada as their way of giving back to the nation in appreciation for what it had done for them.

He said as the founding members of the society, the idea to establish YES was to thank government for the education Batswana were receiving, the cost of which had always been the responsibility of government.

Mr Mosebi explained that while YES was initially focused only on rendering academic mentorship to secondary school pupils, its mandate later evolved to also look into the development of Botswana’s young people.

He said their schools tutoring programme was focused on helping pupils with mathematics and science studies as it was apparent that pupils often struggled with the two subjects.

He said they also chose to focus on the two subjects because of their strengths in those subjects as they were studying engineering.

Mr Mosebi added that while interacting with pupils during vacations, YES members realised that empowering pupils required a holistic approach as it became apparent that the majority of pupils had to be assisted in different ways.

Some, he noted, needed to be coached on public speaking while for some it was necessary to help with general character building.

Mr Mosebi commended society’s members for their dedication and passion for the organisation’s work, saying the diligence with which they did their work had brought about an improvement in mathematics and science results in the schools where they had assisted.

Guest speaker at the event, Dr Boitumelo Mogome-Maseko said the work of NGOs such as YES did not only benefit the targeted beneficiaries, but often benefited the entire nation.

Dr Mogome-Maseko, who is the CEO of BMC, said the work being done by YES of grooming young people was commendable, particularly that it was giving children the opportunity to achieve their desired dreams.

She said the motivation that YES gave pupils had continued to inspire them and change the way they viewed life.

She noted that studies had shown that children who were mentored more often achieved much in life.

She said with the achievements that YES had had since inception, there was evidence that it would achieve even more.

Dr Mogome-Maseko, however, implored YES to consider rolling out their services to schools outside of Gaborone, saying restricting their work to Gaborone schools would deny children in the rest of the country the opportunity to do better in their studies and in life.

In the same vein, she called on the corporate community to join hands with YES so as to enable the organisation to roll out its services.

Another founding member of YES, Ms Unami Habana said it was pleasing to see the organisation still standing 10 years after inception.

She said for the society to be enjoying the support of some companies in the corporate world was a sign of growth, noting that during its formative years its activities were funded by members from their school allowances. ENDS