24 May 2018

Government has budgeted P58 million for the acquisition of content for the recently launched Youth TV Channel branded “Now.”

Assistant Minister of Youth Empowerment, Sport and Culture Development, Dikgang Makgalemele said the TV channel provided opportunities for television production companies with youth programmes to provide content for the TV channel.

He cited as a challenge the lack of the required receiving equipment in the form of set-top-boxes for general viewership in the local market. He explained that government launched the Youth TV channel this year in keeping with the demands of the young generation.

He said the Youth TV channel had created income for 28 youth businesses that operated in the television spectrum in Botswana.

He said the youth businesses earned a combined P16.5 million through which other jobs were created for young Batswana.

Makgalemele said in yet another initiative to improve the quality of life of Batswana, government has allocated P10 million towards the procurement of artworks and performance services by different ministries and independent departments.

On other issues, he called on writers, historians and other scholars to document Botswana’s cultural heritage by building databases and websites for the benefit of the nation.

He said such could be used by learning institutions and researchers, adding that Batswana were living in the global village and had to take advantage of Information Communication Technology to protect and safeguard the national heritage or else Batswana might find themselves with nothing to refer to in-terms of teaching future generations about the country’s heritage.

He noted that the country ratified the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) in 2010. He said the convention  encouraged community based research and documentation.

The assistant minister said since ratifying the convention, a number of research projects on inventorying of ICH at grassroots level had been undertaken in various districts around the country, including Kgatleng, Chobe, North East and Ghanzi.

He said it has led to the listing of Botswana’s ICH practices under the UNESCO list of ICH. The undertaking, he said, had been an eye-opener for the nation on the value and importance of safeguarding the country’s heritage for transmission to the younger generation. Ends