14 Aug 2023

Premiere Nickel Resources Botswana (PNRB) will on September 30 treat  Selebi Phikwe residents to a carnival parade and festival to celebrate the Independence Day.

Dubbed Tsholofelo Carnival, the event which would be held under the theme: Unity and Diversity would start with a parade from all corners of the town to Sam Sono stadium where the main activities of the day would take place.

PNRB’s vice president- environmental, social and governance Shamil Agosi said during a media conference in Selebi Phikwe recently that the second edition of the Tsholofelo Carnival would promote partnerships between professionals and upcoming youthful entrepreneurs in the areas of entrepreneurship, arts, sports and culture.

She said the carnival name derived from the hope that the people of Selebi Phikwe pinned on PNRB after losing thousands of jobs due to the closure of the BCL mine in 2016.

Even though the company was still in the process of re-opening the mine after purchasing BCL’s Selebi and Selebi North mines, 

Agosi explained that the PNRB’s footprints had been visible since 2021, when the company started a mapping exercise to understand how residents had been impacted by the BCL mine closure and the initiatives in place to assist the affected members of the community. She said the exercise was also aimed at helping PNRB to determine where to focus the most of their investment and where they could make the most impact as far as economic resuscitation of Selebi Phikwe was concerned.

She explained that the mapping exercise helped PNRB identify entrepreneurship arts, sports and culture as sectors that needed to be revamped in order to achieve the government’s aspiration of resuscitating the economy of Selebi Phikwe.

“We saw it fit to come up with Tsholofelo Carnival parade and festival in honour of the role of culture that has to be played in our town.”

She said the carnival would start with workshops for entrepreneurs and face-lifting some areas in town in order to give young people in Selebi Phikwe something to work on, adding that they were going to start with painting the murals in Botshabelo, Newstance and Distance.

“We have partnered with Wilson Ngoni and we call on young people to register to work with Ngoni in ensuring that these spaces were revamped.”

She said the spaces would motivate the people of Selebi Phikwe particularly young people or social media influencers to shoot their tik-tok videos to sell their talent and Selebi Phikwe.

Regarding entrepreneurship, she said the company would run workshops and issue the attendees with certificates after completion.

Ms Agosi said the day would be marked by traditional dance, poetry, and many other activities which would be followed by the carnival festival in the evening. Ends