08 Jul 2019

Government, through Botswana National Youth Council (BNYC) and the Ministry of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development, continues to address the plight of youth.

That, BNYC chief programmes officer, Ms Emang Seabo said was because government viewed the youth as a resource through which intended national development goals could be realised.

Ms Seabo was speaking at a youth colloquium attended by participants from Francistown, Tonota, North West and Chobe districts recently.

She indicated that BNYC, which was an arm of government, still played a role of advocacy for youth inclusiveness and participation in all platforms for decision making and planning for national development.

Ms Seabo said it was on the basis of the principle that for the first time since the introduction of the Youth Tourism Expo last year, a colloquium was organised as a way of providing a platform for discussion of issues on tourism that would help address poverty and unemployment among the youth.

She encouraged young people to focus on the life positives and deal appropriately with hindrances and challenges that could stop them from extracting relevant information from the facilitators.

She also urged the youth to desist from finding faults in other people, but to focus on the positives they could get from them in order to develop from one level to the other.

“You should behave just like a honey bee that can extract nectar from a flower at a graveyard. The bee ignores the environment and only concentrates in getting the nectar and leaves the flower as it is,” she said.

Chobe District youth coordinator, Ms Onthatile Modise said the youth colloquium, which acted as a curtain raiser to the 2019 Youth Tourism Expo, was aimed at empowering the youth with information that could help them better build their businesses.

Welcoming the youth, Ms Modise said the session brought together stakeholders from institutions that offered services to youth companies to explain more on the services they provided.

She said by doing so the youth would be better positioned to thrive and compete with their elderly counterparts in the business environment.

One of the facilitators, a district tourism officer, Mr Mogomotsi Baletetse said tourism was one of the sectors that could address unemployment among the youth.

Mr Baletetse encouraged participants to take advantage of the licenses available at his office to develop their lives, particularly those reserved for locals. He said they included the category G licenses as it accorded them an opportunity to approach tourism offices with their innovative business.

Furthermore, he indicated that Chobe District was still doing well in category A, which covered guest houses, campsites and caravan sites, amongst others.

He further encouraged them to develop linkages with neighbouring countries to develop tourism in Botswana and have tourists spend more money in the country.

A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) official, Mr Chris Batsalelwang implored the youth to digitalise their businesses in order to lower risks of errors, speed up processes and enhance customer satisfaction.

Mr Batsalelwang explained that going digital required that they had enabling equipment and that clients should also be able to access their companies through the same mode. He also urged them to look at how they could leverage data to service their customers better, build new offerings and come up with new revenue streams.

He also encouraged them to learn from those already in business and to engage and collaborate with their colleagues in the value chain. ENDS