05 Dec 2021

Bridgette Ketimilwe was on Saturday crowned the first-ever Miss Young Ambitious Entrepreneur 2021 queen in Gaborone.

The 22-year-old Ketimilwe was announced the overall winner after an impressive questions and answer session about her makeup business project.

She bagged a P10 000 prize for the title.  Idah Mothowagare and Ruth Kgotlaetsile were selected as the first and second run-ups respectively.

Miss Young Ambitious Entrepreneur beauty pageant is aimed at empowering and motivating young women aged between 18 -25 years to start their own small-scale businesses to gain financial independence.

It is also intended to address some of the challenges that young people entrepreneurs deal with in their existing business projects.

In an interview with BOPA, the  pageant Coordinator, Phenyo Moroka noted that while starting up small-scale businesses was becoming a means to lessen the impact of unemployment among the youth, it was unfortunate that some did not grow to satisfaction.

She said due to lack of resources particularly the start-up capital some young women easily gave up on their entrepreneurial goals and dreams.

Moroka said the pageant was set to curb the challenge, and give young female entrepreneurs ideas that  would keep sharpening their business skills. 

She said it also geared to encourage young women to believe in their capabilities outside the white-collar job world. 

“This initiative is meant to empower young women. Through it they are required to explain the business ideas they wish to embark on, and those who already have running businesses are quizzed about business growth measures they wish to undertake, and whoever got crowned will be given a cash prize to use in the business,” she said.

Moroka said there would be constant monitoring of business transactions and activities to avoid misuse of funds, adding that the contest would run annually and the prize money would keep increasing depending on the availability of resources.

He said the contest was open to young women from all walks of life, those with or without children, and there were no height or body restrictions. 

He said what was  needed was for one to be articulate about her business idea.

He also shared that the competition was supposed to be held last year but was postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic. 

He said they conducted physical auditions for entrants in Gaborone and online for those outside Gaborone. ENDS