Encore Aims To Uplift Botswana's Creative Industry
Correspondent | Monday August 3, 2020 12:46
These days a Master’s degree certificate is no different from a Botswana General Certificate for Secondary Education (BGCSE).
With this in mind, Batswana youth are getting smarter, innovative, and creative with every year that passes by. It could be they are realising that with the way things are turning out, the only way to eke out a living is to wake up and create opportunities for themselves.
This thinking, and young people honing their skills from relevant stakeholders, entrepreneurship can take them and the rest of the economy to greater heights while providing livelihoods for themselves.
Fresh from Kgari Sechele Senior Secondry School in Molepolole, fresh-faced 18-year-old Givens Bagopi, is taking life by the horns.
Still at the peak of his teens, Bagopi is in the process of setting up his company, Encore Creatives which will be involved in event planning and management alongside merchandising.
Encore also organises studios for music and videography. The company is still at its registration stages and the expectation is to launch it by December. He reveals he was motivated by the status quo in the entertainment industry.
“I love creative and innovative art and it kills me inside that local artists, painters, motivational speakers and poets to name but a few, are being undermined and forced to sell their talent for peanuts,” says Bagopi.
“I am developing a business idea that will empower and uplift the dignity of all local artists. I know maybe many think I will not survive, but I am confident that with my three-year-old research and with my hard work, I will survive. My vision is power to all creative artists.”
Bagopi reveals how hard it is as a budding entrepreneur, who also happens to be in his teens in light of the current stereotypes that parents and the rest of the society have. Bagopi says people think he is too young to be in business and the support he gets is negligible.
Another challenge he has come across has been from government funding for youth projects, saying he was told he does not qualify for grants, with officials reasoning that his ideas were raw and have not been tried and tested.
His main worry has been lack of funds as he needs a place to rent and other resources required for the business, adding he would appreciate if Batswana supported his endeavours like offering him advice and financial assistance.
Bagopi also calls out to government to change the procedure used to fund the youth and their programmes as he argues, “it is clearly not working” .
According to him, if these hurdles were removed, he believes “we can get rid of unemployment and that as citizens we need to know that we are the system and stop calling the government the system”.
His view is that unemployed people do not always have to wait to be absorbed into to the job market as they can create opportunities for themselves. He therefore says it is time for revolution, self-empowerment and self-development.
“I am a humble person and usually I am always ready to do whatever it takes because for me there is no job that is big or small. We all have to start somewhere and in preparation for a great life. I believe such a mindset could help us to be able to curb the problem of unemployment. I am also working on a project to help on this issue, to raise financial literacy across Botswana and to help people establish their businesses,” Bagopi says.
“The Bible says time and chance happen to all of us and the race is not to the swift. Let us be encouraged. We are all winners. You just need to claim it.”