24 Jun 2019

Village Development Committee (VDC) has found the need to empower their community by bringing internet services closer through their newly built internet café project in the ward.

Their decision is largely influenced by the fact that today’s lifestyle is based on technology and the use of internet.

When receiving a desktop computer donated by the Internet Society, the VDC chairperson, Mr Edwin Motlhabane said the project had remained one of their best intentions to achieve since the inception of the committee.

He said they remained hopeful that the project would serve as a constant structure which would help them raise funds for their community as the internet services would be provided at a charge.  

He said the intention was to bring internet and technology services to their community as most of the time they accessed them in malls which were five kilometres away.

The internet café, he said, would help the youth in job hunting as they would easily access the internet services to send emails and prepare all the required documents.

Mr Motlhabane also stated that the project would also assist children who failed to continue to other educational levels to study from home to supplement their studies.

“We have offices in our community which require administration documents, we also have students who need to do research to supplement their studies as well as students who are sitting for different examinations at the end of the year,” Mr Motlhabane said.

He also added that one of their VDC objectives was to fully utilise the café by arranging and providing tutorial services whereby they would train examination candidates on how they could effectively research and revise for exams through internet usage.

“In efforts to empower students from our community to perform better in their exams and studies, we will offer tutorials from our internet café. The tuition will be on voluntary basis from graduates who are unemployed to positively use their skills to make a difference in the community,” he said.

Mr Motlhabane also appreciated the donation they received from the Internet Society adding that the gesture was ideal and requested assistance from other companies.

“Initially when we started the project, we did not have enough funds. We asked for donations from different companies, but the Internet Society responded to our call by training some community members and VDC committee on ICT basics as well as donating a computer,” he said.

When handing over the donation, a representative from the Internet society, Mr Phuthego Chere said it had come to their attention that most government services were switching to digital landscape but the citizens remained computer illiterate.

 He said it was interesting to see Lekgwapheng VDC taking action by bridging the digital gap in their community. 

He therefore pledged to donate other computers and train them to further develop their ICT skills.

“In partnership with the American Internet Society we intend to make sure that our country remains literate and competitive in ICT and internet usage because technology knowledge is very low in Botswana,” Mr Chere said.

When giving close remarks, Molepolole South Member of Parliament Dr Tlamelo Mmatli commended the Lekgwapheng VDC for their efforts noting that technology was very important in today’s lifestyle.

“I appreciate this kind of gesture from Lekgwapheng VDC. It is important to see VDCs creating a difference that will help locals to remain competitive and empowered. I hope other VDCs will learn something from your efforts. I also pledge to donate a computer to this project,” he said. Ends