02 Nov 2022

Youth have been challenged to take advantage of social media platforms to advance themselves and work online to beat unemployment.

The advice was shared by young entrepreneurs during a youth forum that was organised by the office of Molepolole North MP recently.

Parallel Graphics managing director and youth entrepreneur, Mr McDonald Rabantetse, who was a delegate at this year’s Forbes Under 30 Summit challenged his peers to take advantage of social media platforms to employ themselves.

He said since there were no employment opportunities not only in this country but worldwide, youth should take advantage of digital platforms to seek for opportunities.

Mr Rabantetse said he was a living testimony of this as he registered his graphic design business in 2015.

In 2016, he took a youth deoartment grant to fund the business.

He said when the business closed down owing to COVID-19 pandemic, he did not fold his arms.

He encouraged the youth to make use of Youtube, google and twitter to learn new set of skills and ideas.

For his part, Situation Room Africa managing director, Mr Elvis Dambe, narrated how he started off selling tomatoes on the street and ended up squandering the money indulging in alcohol and substance abuse.

After some soul searching, he decided to cut idle time and use it wisely.

At the moment, he said if he was not attending to his marketing and advertising clients from his office at home, he taught English language online which he dedicated a full hour to on a daily business.

Apart from that, he studied online to further his education.

He, therefore, urged the youth to learn to redirect their energies and focus saying ‘it is only going to get difficult.’

For his part, Molepolole North MP, Mr Oabile Regoeng, encouraged youth to persevere and have passion to get what they wanted.

He told them that in life no one could get anything on a silver platter except through perseverance.

However, he advised young people to limit the time they spent drinking and entertaining and instead use most of their productive time on things that would benefit them because unemployment was a worldwide phenomenon.

Apostolic Faith Mission of Botswana’s Pastor Ephraim Semathane also encouraged young people to meditate on their desired future.

“You must put boundaries around your life and meditate upon good things,” he opined adding they should dream things they wanted and meditate over them from time to time in order to attract them into reality.

Research assistant in the office of Parliament for Molepolole North constituency, Mr Phetso Kgosiemang, trained the young people on concepts of entrepreneurship including types of businesses and types of entrepreneurs as well as tips for entrepreneurship.

To those that wanted to venture into business, he advised them to do a market survey to determine a need for their product or business. Also, he shed light on why they should know their potential customers and their competition.

“We need disciplined young entrepreneurs who set goals for themselves,” he said urging them to get out of their comfort zone.

Different government departments as well as non-profit organizations also presented government programmes that youth could take advantage of. ENDS