26 Jul 2021

 Despite the several challenges that Thabala still faces, the village’s tribal authority Kgosi Abel Kgaboyarona is worried about the unrelenting grip that unemployment still has over residents of the village.

With limited economic activity in the village, the future of the village’s unemployed remains bleak, with the youth likely to get a late start to life should the situation not improve in the near future.

Kgosi Kgaboyarona has since pinned his hopes on the beneficiaries of different social and economic empowerment programmes to push their different business ventures to success so as to be able to create job opportunities for others in the village.

Despite this being one way through which the fortunes of many in the village could be turned around, realising this ideal will be a mammoth task for the entire village as the youth, being the age category most affected by unemployment, seem less keen to take up the different empowerment schemes that are at their disposal.

“We are facing a big problem of unemployment. What is puzzling however is that though youth empowerment schemes can help us overcome this challenge, our youths are reluctant to make use of such programmes,” Kgosi Kgaboyarona notes.

Despite the lukewarm response of the youth towards the economic and social upliftment programmes, Kgosi Kgaboyarona believes that with concerted efforts from all stakeholders, led at the forefront by the different implementing departments and agencies, the situation can still be salvaged.

“The implementing departments should keep coming to encourage our people. We cannot afford to give up on them now because these programmes have the potential to improve lives in different ways,” he states.

A beneficiary of the poverty eradication programme, Ms Lesenyegile Boikanyo who operates a bakery project, is among those from whom a few job openings are expected.

Notwithstanding the huge role that she acknowledges she has to do something about as a way of giving back to her community, Ms Boikanyo feels it will take a while for her to be able to hire even one person in her business.

Alongside her business partner, Mr Kago Gobotswang of Moiyabana, business is currently quite slow for the duo, a situation that impedes their desire to contribute to efforts to help address unemployment in Thabala.

Ms Boikanyo notes that though not an everyday occurrence, they at times get a few hands to assist on a temporary basis when their business’s catering wing has landed a tender for which they feel they need extra hands to be able to deliver to customers’ satisfaction.

For 30 year-old Mr Leano Goetswang who has been approved for a smallstock project, beneficiaries of the different initiatives carry an immense responsibility to themselves, the communities and the entire nation, and for this reason they should give their projects their utmost best so that they become successful.

“Those who benefit in whatever way should give something back to their communities and that can be done through creating a few jobs for the benefit of those without jobs and a source of living,” he observes.

Mr Goetswang, who awaits allocation of a ploughing field where he hopes to eventually keep his smallstock, has big dreams pertaining to the piece of land that he hopes to one day own.

His intention is to also use the ploughing field for horticultural purposes, as well as for growing feed for his smallstock.

These two activities, he reckons will enable him to employ one or two people from his village, and while he believes that would not be a big enough contribution towards the war against unemployment, he draws satisfaction from the fact that should other beneficiaries of other programmes follow his intended path, their cumulative efforts would make a huge difference.

With Kgosi Kgaboyarona and some beneficiaries clearly sharing a similar vision for their village, there remains some glimmer of hope that someday all beneficiaries in Thabala will join the bandwagon and run their projects not only with the intention to improve their economy at family level but to also contribute to the growth of that of the village. ends