02 Feb 2021

We Can Charitable Trust has been mandated to coordinate and enhance growth of creative and performing arts from the grassroots level focusing on all school going children, people with disability and disadvantaged individuals from all ages.

Director of the trust, Ms Mmapula Moatswi, said this in an interview recently. 

She said the organisation was formed by senior teachers’ sports and art teachers in various schools in Serowe region in 2018, but was later launched country wide.

Ms Moatswi said the trust was a non-profit making entity registered under the registry of deeds. 

She said the trust targeted individuals in communities adversely impacted by factors such as cultural practices, inadequate infrastructural development and low levels of education, unemployment, poverty and social ills, among youth. She said their other mission was to reach out to youth, women and people living with disability because they understood the challenges faced by marginalised groups.

Ms Moatswi, who is a professional artist, senior teacher of sports and art said following further studies in art abroad, she felt that arts teachers were underutilised in Botswana. 

She said the trust would unearth, develop and nurture the creative and performance talent in young people as well as coordinate and enhance growth of creative and performing arts from the grassroots level, focusing on people of all ages.

She emphasised that the trust had potential to develop a child at tender age by imparting life skills and guidance to utilise their talents to earn a living. 

She called on the business community and individuals to assist the trust financially. 

She said they were experiencing financial constraints, which hindered them from undertaking some of the planned projects noting that they relied much on money from their pockets. 

The trust called on ministries to assist them financially to help most of disadvantaged people in society, because critical issues such as poverty and youth unemployment addressed by the trust were equally a concern and a burden for government.

She said they had suspended some of their activities due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but hopefully they would push some of them.

Trust project coordinator, Ms Natasha Moatswi stated that pupils and artists were used as change agents through reciting poems, plays, songs and dances that addressed issues, which affected the society particularly the youth.

She noted that their long term sustainable projects included having recording studio, building a creative arts centre and an academy for creative and performing arts. 

She said their intention was to mould children at grassroots level, but were derailed by COVID-19 outbreak.

Ms Natasha said they had  been conducting kgotla meetings on their mission before the pandemic, adding that they went as far as Chobe District where they addressed villages on their mandate. 

She stated that the trust’s main constraints were lack of office equipment, transport, music instruments and office space to operate from. ends