06 May 2025

The Healthy Families Foundation (HFF) has embarked on tutorial programmes  aimed at equipping  trainees with skills and knowledge to effectively manage families in  response to the concerning gender-based violence (GBV) cases.
This was said by Mr Percy Thaba, the founder and CEO of the foundation on Monday during the official opening of the 18-days’ campaign in Molepolole.
The campaign, he said, was the 10th of its kind with the previous sessions having trained 24 000 people around Botswana in knowing how to have a healthy and strong family.
“Our believe is that all the social ills that we have around Botswana can be traced back to the family because a family is the smallest unit of society. We can solve our issues at home. We can give people different teachings or training on how to make themselves healthy, giving them those tips then they can have hope of actually building strong families,” said Mr Thaba.
He said they were aiming to train between 300-400 people in the Molepolole campaign in a typical train-a-trainer’s model with the intention that all trainers would move around Molepolole teaching people.
Mr Thaba said their target was to teach about 4 000 people with the hope of transforming Molepolole into a new and better village.
“By the time we finish this course in May 22, 2025, we will have a changed Molepolole. A  Molepolole that is transformed.” said Mr Thaba.
According to the recent police statistics, Molepolole has a high number of GBV cases.
Deputy Officer Commanding District No.11 Superintendent Batlatsi Balapisi indicated that 11 murder cases were recorded in 2023 as compared to 10 cases in 2024.
He said 118 cases were recorded under defilement files in 2023 while in 2024, 85 cases were registered.
The statistics, he noted, also indicated that under the rape offence, in 2023 there were 172 cases reported while in 2024 there were 133 cases recorded.
In the threat to kill offence, Supt Balapisi said 124 cases were received in 2023 whilst 231 cases were recorded in 2024.
Assault seemed to be so common in Molepolole with a high number of cases reported to in 2023, standing at 254 whereas in 2024, 242 cases were reported.
The report by Supt Balapisi also indicated that in the assault occasioning actual bodily harm, 187 cases were reported in 2023 and 160 cases in 2024.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Youth and Gender Affairs, Ms Bridget John said in 2023, statistics indicated that about 21 903 GBV cases were registered in Botswana with 5 067 cases affecting minors under the age of 18. ENDS