26 Jul 2020

A leadership skill  gap he discovered among young aspiring leaders has compelled 24-year-old Kitso Kakambi to write a book  to bridge the gap.

His book titled Young Leadership targets learners from primary school to tertiary level and aims to reinforce their attitudes towards responsibility and to learn self-reliance at an early stage.

Kakambi said he believed primary school pupils could comprehend and utilise the book because he used simple diction.

“I call this book a manual for leadership,” he  said in an interview.

He explained that when putting the book together, he considered Botswana‘s 2036 Vision pillars that called for sustainable economic development, human and social development, sustainable environment and good governance, peace and security.

“I got to be an SRC president at Chobe Junior Secondary School, I had anticipated that some formal training will be offered during my tenure as the president but to my surprise there was no training whatsoever on what the role entailed,” said Kakambi.

He said in retrospect he realised hat he failed his fellow pupils during his tenure as SRC president, as he felt that he did not perform his duties to the best of his abilities.

He said he was hoping the book would reach even the less privileged young people in rural areas to instill in them leadership skills from an early age.

“I failed because, I was not sure of what was expected of me as a president. I had perceived as most of us that being an SRC president was about getting a bigger slice of bread,” he said.

Mr Kakambi said he faced a lot of challenges writing the book which were mostly financial and he saved part of his allowance to get his book published.

“Sometimes I would lose motivation,” said Kakambi.

He advised young people to explore their talents, adding that young people should express themselves whichever way they can, be it through song writing, graffiti and books.

Further, he revealed that it took time and focus to write the book explaining that he started writing his book in 2018.

He explained that as a Christian, he had been trained on public speaking and how to conduct group sessions at church and  he was often assigned to go and share ideas with his fellow pupils at school on different issues such as academic excellence, failure and other social ills.

Kakambi also pastored at church which he believed was a good platform to learn more about leadership.

He directed his utmost gratitude towards his church.

“I remember a certain pastor at church saying to us that all the things we learnt at church could be imparted to our peers through writing a book and I heeded that,” said Kakambi.

He said that he used social media, publisher website platforms to showcase his book and said he sometimes visited schools to give motivational speeches on leadership.

Kakambi said that he was optimistic that the book would be an eye opener to many young and gullible minds and help develop good future leaders.

The book is yet to be distributed in books stores and libraries and sells for P120 a copy. ENDS