12 Feb 2017

Determination and hard work is what kept a 55-year-old Tshesebe born, Ms Gladys Mokgosi going.
Narrating the storyof her life, Ms Mokgosi says nothing is fun about life.
She tells how she used to own nothing, but only a blanket she inherited from her late grandmother.
During those days she was staying in a one-roomed house with a broken door at her sister’s place. It was this state of affairs that forced her to get up and improve her living standards.
Looking back at her life journey, Ms Mokgosi is full of smiles, indicating that now she leads a free, happy and hopeful life, thanks to the Poverty Eradication Programme.
She acknowledges the programme for helping her change her life from poverty, hunger and hopelessness after she started a cleaning services business.
She says with the profit she accumulated from her busniess, she managed to build herself a two-and-a-half house in her own yard.
Ms Mokgosi also tells of how, after  her mother died in 1967, she relocated to Zimbabwe with her grandmother and stayed there for over 10 years, trying to make ends meet.
She later came returned to Botswana. As thogh joblessnes was not enough a suffering, she lost her grandmother in 2012, which demise made life even harder for her.
However, she did not let that dumpen her spirits, but resorted to surviving through whatever temporary jobs she could come accross ranging from laundry, cleaning, field work, grass cutting to bush clearing.
She would later join Ipelegeng, but there was still no improvement in her life since she lagged behind in a lot of things.
In 2013, she pursued a land rehabilitation course with the help of the Department of Crop Production, after which she was hired at the land rehabilitation project in Mapoka. That was a major twist in her life.
Ms Mokgosi says one day while they were busy picking stones at the top of a hill for use at Mapoka land rehabilitation project, she overheard her coworkers talking about the Poverty Eradication Programme and she decided to give it a try.
What she wanted was engaging in either grass thatching or phane harvesting projects, but decided to drop them because they were seasonal projects.
At the back of her mind, she wanted something that would change her life instantly.
After opting for a cleaning services project, Ms Mokgosi explains how she and others were oriented and theoretically tested and later engaged in practical tests.
They cleaned offices, couches, mats as their practical test. Although it was difficult she could not surrender because she wanted her dream to come true.
After that, she was granted P13 000 and managed to buy all the necessary machinery and chemicals.
“I used to market my services by word of mounth in public transport, in and around Mapoka and other surrounding villages,” she says.
She further says even though her business was on and off, she managed to reap something and in 2015, she built herself a house, which she also furnished.
She says at the beginning of 2016, she moved to her new home and started enjoying her new life.
Ms Mokgosi says despite lack of transport and other challenges, she just has to keep working hard for a successful business and a better life.
Having endured the bad side of life, she thus encourages Batswana to stand up for themselves and change their lives by making use of government initiatives and other programmes.
Ms Mokgosi, who grew up with nothing, now has a place she calls home, all thanks to the Poverty Eradication Programme.
However, this is not the end becuase she has enrolled for Thuto-ga-e-golelwe doing grade 1, just to see what she can engage in next to further improve her life. ENDS