23 Aug 2020

 Incurring disability at middle age can be devastating and frightening,  especially the thought of how one is going to lead a new life without sight.

 Despite being visually impaired, Digawana raised entrepreneur, Mr Othusitse Mokgele’s business success story has shown that there is life after misfortunes. 

In an interview with BOPA recently, the 47-year-old, who pronounced himself as a visually impaired man, revealed that he met his ordeal when he was in his 20s. 

Just as the Greek Philosopher Socrates’ quote that the secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but building the new, Mr Mokgele’s condition did not deter him from pursuing his desire to lead a decent life like any other young man of his age. 

While the idea of earning a decent living was not far-fetched, he needed certain skills to attain such, hence he enrolled with Pudulogong Rehabilitation Centre for the Blind.

After his return from the centre in 2010, he made entry into the business sphere by operating a tuckshop in his community. 

Perseverance being one of his qualities, Mr Mokgele embraced the Poverty Eradication Programme by venturing into backyard garden. 

His profound business skills saw him grow to create a robust value chain, where he introduced a vegetable garden to his line of trade.

The established businessman credits the programme for contributing to his success in the business sector; declaring the fund accessed as a stepping stone to all his business breakthroughs.

He said he successfully developed and managed the garden alongside the tuck-shop and subsequently secured a market for supplying fresh vegetables to local schools and the community at large.

“My value chain grew and earned me a registered company with the proceeds that I made from the two businesses,” he said.

He described his company as a supplies business, which has already netted him lucrative tenders with the government, particularly, with supply of vegetables and related commodities.

Despite this achievement, Mr Mokgele said he still found it apt to grow his business. Therefore he approached Citizen Empowerment Development Agency (CEDA) and Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) for funding and business plan advisory, respectively. Mr Mokgele said he met all government funding requirements and managed to open his first grocery store dubbed Just Prince and Sons in Digawana/Lerwana settlement in 2012.

Subsequent the aforementioned, he expanded the value chain to include Just Prince and Sons Travel and Tours Company and later applied for the LIMID Programme, and ventured into goat production in January this year. 

He reiterated that his inspiration developed around Choppies Supermarket, which has a series of shops in different locations, both within and outside Botswana.

Passion and admiration for Choppies chain stores model propelled him to open yet another shop in Kgoro settlement around May, which offers the same services.

Mr Mokgele emphasised with delight that he was working on building a stable chain store within all corners of Botswana.

He attributed good business etiquette as a fundamental principle that made him to prosper in his niche; citing good governance and effective record management as pivotal to the success of any business.

To this juncture Mr Mokgele said he had found it befitting to encourage people with disabilities to pursue their dreams despite all associated challenges.

His spirit of compassion impelled him to work with members of the community to set up Kopano Multipurpose Cooperatives back in 2016, which focused largely on broiler production.

He expressively mentioned that lately he had been conducting motivational talks and mentoring classes to help those who yearned to make it in the business sphere. ends