I have three weeks left in my formal Fulbright DAT program and then will travel for three weeks in Botswana and South Africa. The first of the "lasts" are beginning. Friday was my last UB Demography of Botswana class. The professor assigned a paper for the students to work on for the last two weeks of the semester, so the class will not meet again. Wherever I go in Gabs, I'm thinking, "this may be the last time I'm here." Some pressure now to visit those last schools, interview those last people, write the Summary Report, create the lesson plans. And underneath it all, the ever-present pressures of just navigating everyday life. As Tess and I often discussed, it's not that easy to be a visiting scholar here. Lots of things that shouldn't be so difficult, are. This was a short work week due to the public holiday on Monday. I had one interview, with Chris of BW Jobs 4 Graduates. One key requirement for "harnessing the demographic dividend" is that Botswana's youth need to be gainfully employed. Botswana's youth unemployment rate is at least 25%. BW Jobs 4 Graduates started in 2012 as an online job board. Since that time they have expanded their offerings to include an annual job fair, weekly seminars for job seekers and practical services such as help with CVs, cover letters, interviews, etc. Before the interview I attended the weekly seminar. This week's theme was "How To Make It In The Hospitality Industry". Tourism is Botswana's second largest industry after diamonds. The two presenters (one female and one male, one older and one younger, one who came up through a formal management trainee system and one who started as a doorman), shared their stories and gave a lot of helpful advice. You don't necessarily need a degree in the industry. You don't have to wait for the perfect job. Take a job or a volunteer opportunity you can get, learn from it, find mentors, build your skills and confidence. Position yourself to walk through doors when they open. After applying five times, Chris was accepted into the Mandela Washington Fellowship program. He will spend six weeks at Appalachian State University in North Carolina this summer. On Thursday I returned to Nare Sereto Junior Secondary School in Gabane with Tebatso and his Banabakgwale Association colleague Prince to meet with Gloria, the ICT Teacher, to discuss plans for the World ICT Day event on May 10th. I was also able to introduce my 10-Question SDGs survey to the Social Studies class that will be participating. Research permit rules require that the learners have two signed consent forms before they can take the survey (one signed by parents, one signed by the learners themselves). The learners left school with the parental permission slips on Thursday. Fingers crossed. I'll be back at the school on Monday to check up on the survey.
The last day of my Demography of Botswana class was the best of the semester. We had a guest speaker from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning who provided a clear, concise, engaging overview of Botswana's population policy, termed the Revised Population Policy of 2010. This policy is one of the drivers of Botswana's economic development (including United Nations Sustainable Development Goal implementation), setting targets for population size and distribution, health, HIV/AIDS, vulnerable populations, housing, water and energy, food security, technology, resource protection and more. Friday was the inaugural celebration of World Book and Copyright Day at the Gaborone Public Library, so no SDGs seminar for kids, but a successful event for the library that was well attended. The day included a presentation of 5,000 children's books from the Botswana Book Project, affiliated with Minnesota's Books for Africa. These books will be distributed to libraries around the country.
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The monkeys are busy scampering across campus and wrestling with each other. Sleepy Gabs is even sleepier as pretty much everyone has cleared out of the city and headed home to their villages for the four-day Easter weekend. This week was a farewell tour with Tess, my Fulbright DAT colleague. We had a last Botswanacraft lunch, a last visit to the Sierra Leonean tailor K-Man at African Mall and a last Sanita's lunch, all in the company of her friends Mandisa and Rati. After a bit of final hours stress when her Air Botswana flight was unexpectedly cancelled, she was able to be rescheduled onto a South African Airways flight from Gabs to Joburg and is now somewhere high over the Atlantic on her way home to Chicago, where she'll be back in the classroom with her learners on Tuesday. Already missing my intelligent, inquisitive, multilingual, fearless partner. This week I interviewed Wame and Senzeni from BOFWA (Botswana Family Welfare Association). BOFWA provides sexual and reproductive health education, advocacy and clinical services, targeting marginalized youth in Gaborone, Kanye, Maun, Kasane and Francistown. The Guardian article How To Grapple With Soaring World Population? An Answer From Botswana explains that family planning efforts on the part of the Botswana government and NGOs like BOFWA have contributed to a reduction in Botswana's fertility rate from 6.5 in 1971 to 2.8 in 2011. There is still an unmet need for family planning, particularly in rural areas and among low income groups and teens. The first step for anyone interested in accessing any of BOFWA's clinical services is an HIV test. Botswana has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS infections in the world, even with the provision of free ARV (antiretroviral) meds to all. Stigma remains. Some people avoid testing, do not know their status and pass on the virus. HIV/AIDS message fatigue, typical risky behaviors of youth, the belief that AIDS is no longer a death sentence, high unemployment and particulars of Botswana dating culture also continue to fuel new infections. On Tuesday I met with Olerato of Sentabale in an office in the highest building in Gabs, iTowers. Sentabale works in both Botswana and Lesotho and focuses on meeting the material and psychological needs of HIV positive youth and on providing a forum for youth voice and leadership regarding HIV/AIDS issues. Sentabale was founded by Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho. Thursday evening I attended a Cocktail Launch for YALDA's Citizen's Report at Botho University with Tebatso and two other Banabakgwale Association members. I was really looking forward to the event because the agenda included a panel with representatives of government, education and NGOs speaking about United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) implementation in Botswana. A perfect fit with my project! Just as they launched into the panel discussion portion of the program, goodbye English and hello Setswana. Argh! Hoping to see a copy of YALDA's Citizen's Report (in English) soon. This week included UB classes, interviews, a few mango and moringa seedlings planted, a litter clean-up and a spectacular show of national pride. On Monday I met with Charity of Botswana Network for Mental Health. My goal was to learn about the work she is doing to support in-school youth, out-of-school youth and unemployed youth. Like so many young Batswana, Charity has a passion and a strong work ethic, yet little to no funding for her work. Specific to the Botswana setting, youth struggle with mental health issues related to HIV/AIDS, gender based violence, test anxiety (exam scores determine secondary school access and government sponsorship for post-secondary education), and job seeking. Charity’s awareness raising and advocacy work aims to reduce stigma associated with mental health issues and to improve mental health education in order to build psychological resilience in youth. Charity began our conversation by sharing her personal struggle with depression. In her words, she shares openly because she has found that “we are motivated by people with a story”. I also connected with Katherine, a U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer now serving her fourth year. Her first three years were spent in the village of Ramotswa and as a fourth-year extender, she is now assigned to the Botswana Ministry of Health. Botswana is considered a “middle income country”, so Peace Corps work here is focused strictly on HIV/AIDS issues. We talked specifically about an assessment of government-sponsored Youth Friendly Family Planning Clinics that she has contributed to. Have It All (linked below) is an excellent video produced by the U.S. Embassy about PEPFAR and Botswana’s “Treat All” program. On Tuesday I interviewed Tshepo of the Botswana Student Network. The Botswana Student Network connects youth to government, business and community organizations to network and serve. Tshepo is also someone with a story that motivates his work. He scored poorly on his exams at the end of Form 5 (equivalent to U.S. grade 12) and therefore did not qualify for Botswana government sponsorship of his post-secondary education. His family sponsored him to go to Cyprus for university, where he excelled in a setting less focused on memorization and more focused on application and had his eyes opened to a wider world. Due to financial constraints he returned home to Botswana after two semesters dedicated to helping youth who may have difficulty passing exams, but do have skills and talents that they can develop to find purpose in their lives and support themselves economically. Tshepo explained that young Batswana who do not move on to Senior Secondary school or university may become discouraged, not see a path to life success, have children at a young age and continue a cycle of poverty. Tuesday I was also at the United Nations building in Gaborone’s government enclave to interview Boago of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). This was a connection that I was able to make thanks to Rebecca Kubanji of the UB Population Studies Department. As a United Nations fan, it was fun just to be in the building! UNFPA work in Botswana focuses on family planning, maternal health and HIV/AIDS with a special concern for gender equality, human rights and youth. Our discussion focused on demographic dividend and U.N. Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) issues, in particular populations that continue to have an unmet need for family planning (low income, rural, teens and HIV/AIDS infected), Botswana’s stubbornly high maternal mortality ratio and the need for alignment of data collection and storage so that consistent analysis can be done at the global, regional and local scale by the United Nations, African Union, Southern African Development Community (SADC) and Botswana government. As a Human Geography teacher, it is interesting to be in a place where people and organizations talk consistently and positively about population policy and development partners. As far as I know, the U.S. does not have a “population policy”, just partisan bickering about family planning, abortion rights and immigration. The U.S. and Russia are the two countries doing the least to implement the SDGs at the national level. In the Trump era, some states and cities are stepping up to fill the federal void. Friday was the weekly Banabakgwale Association's SDGs Seminar for kids. Tebatso brought mango and moringa seedings for the kids to help plant as a 2019 Global Youth Service Day activity. On Saturday, he and his Banabakgwale colleagues organized speakers and a litter pick for high school and college aged youth. The spectacular show of national pride was Saturday’s Botswana Defence Force (BDF) Day at the National Stadium near UB. President Masisi and former President Ian Khama were in attendance and it was quite the event. Marching bands, dancers and singers, canine, horse, tug of war and obstacle course competitions between military branches, a “drama” in which the BDF saved the day, soldiers rappelling from the huge stadium light fixtures and flyovers by military helicopters, cargo planes and combat planes. Pictures below, courtesy of Botswana government photographers.
Botswana is finally transitioning from summer to winter (i.e. slightly cooler temps), which is really refreshing. I actually wore a sweatshirt for the first time yesterday. I'm transitioning too, from the initial weeks and months of my Fulbright DAT program that felt more academic and theoretical, to the final weeks and months which are feeling a whole lot more practical. The idea that Botswana primary, secondary and tertiary education focuses too much on the theoretical and too little on the practical is a recurring theme hammered home in nearly every formal and informal conversation I've had. Many learners emerge from their schooling lacking the technical and soft skills needed for workplace success. This week I met with three impressive young Batswana: Lillian of Career Coaching, Omphile of All Brilliant Minds and Timothy of Young Africa Botswana. What these young people and their organizations are doing (on absolutely shoestring budgets), is attempting to fill gaps that they have identified in the educational system and in government youth employment schemes. Career Coaching provides personal professional development consulting, All Brilliant Minds (ALBRIMO) motivates and tutors secondary students and Young Africa Botswana offers TVET (Technical and Vocational Education and Training) that embeds entrepreneurship and life skills. A speech given by EU Ambassador to Botswana and SADC Jan Sadek at the launch for Young Africa Botswana's "Make TVET Cool Again" campaign details the connections between Botswana's demographics and the need for high quality TVET to address the skills mismatch that is one contributor to Botswana's high youth unemployment rate. Public schools are now on break until the new term starts on April 24, so the turnout was light at this Friday's Banabakgwale Association after school SDGs seminar for kids at the Gaborone Public Library. The kids practiced reading out loud using an online story book called Frieda written by the United Nations Information Centre in Namibia. Banabakgwale is planning several events for Global Youth Service Day April 12-14 that I hope to assist with. We will pick up our project with Nare Sereto Junior Secondary School in Gabane after the break.
On Saturday I joined English Language Fellow Susan for the Crocodile Pools River Safari just outside of Gabs on the Notwane River. Beautiful, peaceful, and lots of birds, monkeys and three crocodiles spotted! |
About MeA 9th grade AP Human Geography and Global Studies teacher at Stillwater Area High School in Stillwater, Minnesota, USA, living and learning in Gaborone, Botswana from January to June 2019 as a Fulbright Teacher. Archives
June 2019
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