03 Jul 2019

The Femina Association has expanded its programmes to Lobatse and surrounding areas in its drive to empower women.

Comprising five women, the association was established 10 years ago in Gaborone where it has been operating.

 It’s co-founder, Ms Lorato Macheng explained at the first ever women’s empowerment meeting recently held in Lobatse by the Femina Association, that they aimed to motivate and empower women to aspire for achievement in life.

The meeting held under the theme; Breaking Protocol – Power Up 2019’ gave participants an opportunity to network and share ideas on issues concerning women.

Ms Macheng pointed out that they used a variety of concepts to empower women, including the femina woman, inspiration and business platforms. She described the femina woman as a woman with purpose.

“Our platform has various wings. There are times when we talk about the spiritual aspect, or business and other times we encourage and counsel each other about issues that women face in the society,” she said.

Ms Keamogetse Nkgare, who is the association’s team leader in Lobatse, said they aimed to inculcate positivity among women in Lobatse.

“Lobatse has been labelled as a negative place. Wherever you go people say Lobatse is full of thieves and bad things. So we are trying to stop that negativity by building young women here to become women of success and go-getters who will grab the opportunities afforded to them,” she said.

Ms Nkgare said they had over the years held events where they brought women from different sectors such as business and various careers under one roof.

She said such events included mentoring sessions for young women, networking sessions, and goal setting workshops among others.

“We also have other developmental programmes in place to mentor young girls. We have girl child dream day competition running in schools,” she said.

Through the competition, Ms Nkgare said they wanted to plant a seed of prosperity early into the live of the girl child.

She said they had held such competition at Maikano and Phitshane- Molopo junior school to nurture girls to have dreams in life. She said they funded all their programmes from their own pockets due to lack of sponsorship.

“Despite lack of funding we have received good feedback from other women that our programmes were having positive impact on them,” Ms Nkgare said.

She said after making an impact in Gaborone, they had now decided to take their programmes to Lobatse and surrounding areas.

Apart from the five members, she said the association operated mostly with volunteers.

One participants at the meeting, Ms Cecilia Seletlo urged women not to allow their backgrounds to limit their aspirations. Ends