Magang family documentary shown again

NNASARETHA KGAMANYANE
Correspondent | Wednesday October 19, 2011 00:00

The documentary had been launched three weeks before.The documentary was inspired by Magang's autobiography entitled, The Magic of Perseverance, which depicts the family's struggle en route to unparrelled success.

The inspirational story about the family, who built their dream from nothing, is meant to inspire other Batswana to work hard at achieving their goals and making their dreams come true.Moabi Mogorosi, the filmmaker and producer, said that he wrote his own script based on some of the things written in the book as they gave him great inspiration.

Magang said when he told people about his dream of building an estate.  No one took him seriously and most thought his dreams were unachievable.  He said his idea of building an estate was undermined by people, including commercial banks, but he never gave up and decided to sell his houses in order to buy the cattle ranch, now known as Phakalane in 1979.

Magang's wife Dorcus also told the audience of their rocky road to success.  She said that after they sold their houses they resided in the then cattle ranch and ploughed some part of the land.  They sold some of the crops to residents of Gaborone more especially at Old Naledi, as street hawkers. They used some of the profits to renovate the place. Her husband explained that he had to sell part of the farm to the Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) so as to use the money to build houses to rent and sell to interested parties. 

He said as Batswana were not supportive, he had to sell some piece of his land to foreigners and that is when Batswana started buying the land.The Magangs have three children who are also playing major roles in the family business. Lesang Magang, the firstborn, is the managing director (MD) of Phakalane Golf Estate Hotel Resort while his brother Thola is the co-managing director.

Their last-born sister Bonang is the managing director of Phakalane Properties.  All the Magang children are business-minded and have adopted business genes from their parents. In the documentary they all emphasise that they strive to ensure the family business grows bigger and stronger.

'Batswana are deluded that foreign products are the best.  Our mindset has to change,' he told the attendees.The family has successfully built their dreams due to perseverance of Dorcus and David Magang who have worked hard and are still working hard to sustain the dream. The family is said to have built a new hotel at Phakalane that is meant to give locals and tourists a different view of Botswana and make them have a lifetime experience.

Mogorosi told Showbiz that they want to bring the Magang story to the people, by showing it on Botswana Television (Btv) and selling it to people who would like to watch it. He said that working with the family had been a great experience as he got to know them better.