24 Jul 2018

Youth are always advised to engage in meaningful activities to lessen the impact of unemployment on their livelihoods.

Together with the advice given, several initiatives are put in place to support all the youth’s efforts and chosen ideas.

Borolong-based Badisa Ba Nkgwana traditional group, consisting of 20 active youth members heeded the advice and have found solace in performing arts activities such as poetry, drama, traditional dance moves, mainly Setapa, Tsutsube, Hosanna and Phathisi. In an interview with BOPA, the group founder, Kenanao “Kay” Tsholofelo said they are involved in the arts to come up with means to not only revive the spirit of self-reliance among themselves, but to eke a living.

“A lot of people out there still perceive out of school youth as troublesome individuals, who want to be spoon fed throughout, as such through this group, we intend to send out a different positive message that we can take care of our basic needs,” he said.

Tsholofelo noted that every year, they take advantage of the President’s Day constituency performing arts competitions and they never return empty handed.

He said since starting to participate in the competitions in 2014, under different categories of traditional dance, they have managed to get position one at ward and constituency level and received cash prizes of P3 000 and P5 000 respectively.

He also said they have also been taking part in poetry competitions and always got position one at ward level and receive P1 500, while at the constituency level they also got position one and won P4 000.

“We always share all the monies we receive from these competitions equally among group members and we use some on our attires so that we have an identity as a group,” he said.

Tsholofelo also noted that other aspects that boost their income is their engagements during social gatherings and they are always paid accordingly. 

He said as all group members have vowed to stick to these performing arts as their means of survival, they treat all scheduled meetings with respect and desired approach.

“These arts are our source of income, we attend practices as per schedule and all members abide. We also do not sit back and only to start practicing when we are called for an event or when the competitions are around corner,” he said.

Tsholofelo said their practices are mainly about exchanging ideas on proper execution of poems, traits of posturing and discipline during traditional dance and several others.

He said each member of the 20-strong group is expected to play an active role, adding that they discourage the tendency to rely on the same people for different activities over and over.

He said their intention is to lure more youth into the group to help them realise and nurture their talents, noting most youth are talented but fail to put all their talents to good use because they lack relevant motivation. ENDS