We want to meet Boko—Para-team
Calistus Kolantsho | Monday October 13, 2025 06:00
The team wants to be treated like their counterparts, the World Athletics Championships team that was hosted for dinner by Boko at the State House. Bose Mokgwathi won a bronze medal in the men’s T13 400m, clocking a Personal Best (PB) of 49.66s. The win follows another bronze medal won by Gloria Majaga last year.
Speaking during the team's welcome ceremony, Captain Katlego Matutu said their wish is to have lunch with the President.
'We want to meet the President for lunch at the State House, just like what happened with the World Athletics Championships team. I want to tell him about the everyday challenges we face,' he said.
Matutu revealed that as visually-impaired athletes, they deal with a lot of day-to-day challenges, including health, social stigma, emotional stress, and limited peer interaction.
He said that as athletes, they spend a lot of money seeking medical assistance, and all they ask for is to be assisted financially.
“Bose Mokgwathi has won a bronze medal. I expect to see his life changing. We saw the private sector donating funds to the athletics team; hopefully, the same hand can be extended to us. The majority of us stay in Mochudi; we can easily come back to Gaborone,” Matutu said.
For his part, the team manager, Monty Ratlou, said the athletes did their best despite the challenges they went through.
He said the only motivation for the athletes is to make the country proud and earn a living.
“The reason why I am saying most of the time it is about national pride, you will realise that the only incentive in the international arena, World Athletics and World Paralympics, which organise such games, but they do not reward similarly. I remember when Collen Kebinatshipi won the gold medal at the World Athletics Championships, people were busy calculating his prize money, but from World Paralympics does not reward athletes. In Botswana, Para-athletes are incentivised the same way as athletes from the mainstream,” he said.
Meanwhile, Botswana National Sport Commission (BNSC) chairperson, Marumo Morule, said the incentive policy is the same for all athletes.
He said they have already made arrangements for Mokgwathi, who will bank P75,000, whilst Majaga and Edwin Masuge will each be rewarded with P20,000 for a top eight finish and coach Nason Maotwe will receive P15,000.
He said the hope is for the government to continue assisting athletes in whatever way they can.
Botswana Council for the Disabled executive director, Moffat Louis, said the last time Botswana won a medal at the Paralympic Games was through a gold medal by Tshotego Morama in 2012.
He said since then, it has been tough despite the medals from Majaga and Mokgwathi at the World Para-Athletics.
“You have inspired the upcoming generation, and in the next games, we expect a lot. We have always seen attempts by our athletes, but they have failed to progress to the next level. From the disability sector, we will continue to bring all stakeholders to recognise this sector as critical for development. The value of a disabled athlete is similar to an athlete from the mainstream sport,” Louis said.