01 Mar 2020

The annual Son of the Soil (SOTS) cultural event held in Rasesa on Saturday has hailed women as custodians of culture.

  SOTS is a cultural show that promotes and preserves culture through food, fashion, music and dance. In an interview with the event’s patron, Sheila Tlou, she said women’s role in cultural affairs has been evident.

   She said women as custodians of culture should be able to encourage others and ensure that Botswana promoted and protected her culture. “We are now in a different era where we can be able to encourage young people to sustain themselves through culture, whether it is tourism, song and dance or documenting,” she said.

She said events like SOTS were evidence that through arts and culture livelihoods could be sustained.

Tlou noted that the theme: Ko Re Go Yang Re Belegwe, resonated well with Botswana’s transformational agenda of a knowledge-based economy. She said the theme called for every Motswana to look deeper into their culture. She encouraged the organisers and other cultural activists to work with other Africans, saying the movement was not just about Botswana, but the Africa that we all wanted.

   Kgosi Mosadi Seboko of Balete also hailed women as leaders in the promotion of culture. She said women contributed immensely to the development of culture. She said SOTS gave Batswana a chance to reflect on their culture. She encouraged organisers of the event to restore and promote Botswana culture not only through music, fashion and food.

   Kgosi Mosadi further cautioned on the use of social media, saying it should be used for the development and building of the nation rather than negativity which does not benefit the country.

  Chairperson of Bana ba Mmala Trust, which is the organising body of SOTS, Pontsho Pusoetsile said through SOTS they seek to identify how they would add value to the transformation agenda and contribute to the knowledge-based economy. He said culture and getting to know oneself was the first step for every Motswana in attaining the transformational agenda.

Pusoetsile further noted that it was through SOTS that they invited other Africans to come and experience Botswana. He also said there was a need to identify the key elements of Botswana culture, adding that Bana Ba Mmala has made efforts to identify visuals around culture in terms of dresses for women. He said they still had challenges in identifying culture for the male, adding that this was not a challenge only to Bana Ba Mmala but also for every Motswana. ENDs