27 Oct 2020

Kwenantle Farmers through Bana Ba 4B Trust seeks to reintroduce 4B clubs inclined towards agriculture at primary schools in the Bobirwa Sub-district. 

According to a brief from the Kwenantle Farmers director Ms Lembie Mmereki, the reintroduction of Bana Ba 4B clubs in primary schools would provide a ‘platform for the engagement of children to foster exposure and to cultivate interest in agriculture.

The company acts as the founder and sponsor of Bana Ba 4B Trust and has earmarked Sefophe Primary School to pilot the programme, a gesture which has been welcomed, according to Ms Mmereki.

Sefophe community is the trustee, Sefophe Primary School learners are the beneficiaries while a multi award winning educator Ms Boammaaruri Bagwasi is the chairperson of the trust that has submitted for registration. Ms Bagwasi is a recipient presidential award of creativity and innovation.

Following a successful kindling of 4B clubs project, the trust will roll-out the project to other primary schools in the region in an endeavor to ignite passion in agriculture at an early age. 

“We are very excited about this chapter and really very anxious to see it take root,” Ms Mmereki said about their project.

The company, a crop farming enterprise at Talana Farms in northern Tuli Block, views reintroduction of 4B clubs as a move to create something tangible that could have long reaching benefits to the Bobirwa community and the country as a whole.

The farming enterprise also contributes agriculture books to schools to help bolster pupils’ grasp of the subject whilst simultaneously kindling the love for the subject.  

The company realised that there were not enough and or many interventions or development programmes geared towards children outside of classroom hence the idea to foster a generation that views agriculture as a viable and desirable career option.

The farmers realised that the programme, 4B that was very popular in the 80s and 90s, had died a natural death and hence the move to resuscitate an improved version instead of reinventing the wheel. 

In an interview, chairperson of Bana Ba 4B Trust lauded 4B clubs for moulding pupils into better beings. 

She cited one of the Kwenantle Farmers director Ms Mmereki as a product of her 4B club at Sefophe Primary School.

A guidance and counselling senior teacher at Semolale Primary School Ms Bagwasi expressed her pride in the reintroduction of 4B clubs and the establishment of Bana Ba 4B Trust, especially with one of the 4B beneficiaries as the founder and sponsor. 

“My 4B students used to be an envy of every pupil because of their commitment to upholding the tenets of the club as botswere, bonatla, boikanyo and boitshwaro in many aspects of their lives,” said Ms Bagwasi.

She said at the time of mooting the reintroduction of 4B clubs, Sefophe Primary School was the least performing school in the region, but went on to posit improved grades. 

Established in 2016 by trio of directors Ms Mmereki, Mr Pieter Diedericks and Mr De Wet, Kwenantle Farmers grow sugar beans, white maize and supplies Lucerne on an approximately 600 hectares under irrigation. Ends