23 Oct 2025

Bathoen II Trust has secured a P70,000 sponsorship from Debswana towards this year’s Mmakgodumo cultural festival. 

The festival will be held at Mmakgodumo Gardens in Kanye on Saturday (October 25). This was revealed by Bathoen II Trust chairperson, Prince Chibana during a press briefing organised by the trust in Kanye on Wednesday. 

He said due to insufficient funds, the money has been partly used on buying the festival merchandise such as T-shirts to help raise more funds for the event. Moreover, he said the sponsorship would also be instrumental in paying the performing artists expected to showcase at the event. 

He noted that in the past year, no entrance nor stall fees were collected from attendees and stakeholders due to reasons of reinstating the event after the COVID-19 break from 2020 until 2023.

The trust secretary, Taolo Mogobe, said this year’s festival would maintain the signature theme from the past years, “Ngwao lore seikokotlelo,” with the main emphasis on exploring the procedures of Bangwaketse weddings, noting that the 2024 festival focused on dikgafela. 

Mogobe highlighted that elders well vested in the tradition of conducting wedding procedures would be at the forefront to facilitate the real wedding day.

Speaking at the presser, Kanye West legislator, Victor Phologolo said Kanye has been described as a beautiful village adorned with abundance of natural resources and cultural heritage, that forms a dream and aspiration of Bangwaketse to have Kanye as one of the destinations that are being sold abroad. 

Responding to questions raised, he acknowledged that Bangwaketse have ideas on what could be done to improve Kanye tourism. However, he stated that coordination of concepts and activities was the most needful to be able to bring them under one roof and package them so that they could be planned on yearly basis. 

He further said such a process would even make it easy for the government to assist. The legislator cited his benchmarking trip to Tonota Heritage Walk, where he said he noted how the event packaging was executed. 

On the same note, he urged the trust members who are also the Mmakgodumo organisers to share the Mmakgodumo brand for successful marketing of Kanye as a tourism destination.

Tickets for the event are sold at P50 for kids, P100 for adults while those who would end up paying at the entrance would be expected to part ways with P150.  Some local business operators are looking forward to make a killing at the festival citing a wonderful experience in the past. 

One such is Chandapiwa Batlang, a resident at Logaba ward operating her food business by Mongala Mall.  She said even this year, she was looking forward to taking her business to the festival. ENDS