19 Oct 2022

Ko Isong series, a platform where issues of heritage and creativity are discussed can bring people off campus to celebrate heritage, which have been neglected.

Various topics such as archeology and history are mostly discussed in order to raise interest on issues around heritage.

Speaking during the episode held for Botswana women writers in celebration of their creative writing as well as discuss the book, Botswana Women Write, the facilitator of the series Fred Morton of Botswana Society said heritage issues had been neglected, therefore the society needed to bring it back.

He further said with the advent of social media misinformation, they believed the Ko Isong series episodes were a perfect platform to bring conversations that would prompt discussions with experts in some topics.

Morton also said the series was there to spark interest among young people on issues of heritage.

The series holds various topics every month at the University of Botswana, with relevant people facilitating the topics while engaging the public.

Ko Isong has monthly topics for discussion about Botswana culture.

Botswana Women Write, available at Exclusive Books, is composed of short stories and poems collectively written by various women writers about their life experiences.

Sharing some of their work, a few of the contributors to the book noted that they wrote about life as experienced either by them personally or just general social life experiences.

Keletso Thobega, a journalist contributed two poems meant to address challenges faced by women journalists, especially the working conditions in Botswana.

Thobega said she would soon be releasing her own book made up of essays and poems focusing on women experiences. She is of the notion that women stories were narrated negatively, and through her work, attempted to narrate them positively and inspirationally.

Tumedi Seatholo contributed a story titled Lilly, about sex work and said she wrote the story in 1980 though she only managed to publish it recently through work with Botswana Women Write.

She derived her inspiration to write from the Bakhurutshe ba Tonota anecdotes.

Some of the contributors are Priscilla Matara with Voices, which explores mental health issues, Lilly Ngwenya-Khupe with The Lump in my Throat, an anecdote that talks about her hurtful childhood experiences that encroached into  her adulthood.

The next Ko Isong series session titled White Lobatse, Segregation in Colonial Botswana, is scheduled  for November 9. ENDs