Young entrepreneurs hail Dinokeng Expo

Kgatleng’s obscure village of Mmathubudukwane was a beehive of activity on Saturday with budding youth entrepreneurs gathering to showcase their business products and services at the second Dinokeng Youth Entrepreneurship Expo.

The over 35 emerging businesses that filled part of the Cosmos FC football pitch’s expanse were patronized by hundreds of visitors who thronged the event, among them the Botswana Stock Exchange CEO Thapelo Tsheole who was the guest of honour. Following on last year’s inaugural exposition where only eight exhibitors were on show, this year’s event showed tremendous growth as businesses had come from all over the country, with most however, coming from the nearby villages of Malolwane, Ramonaka, Mabalane and Sikwane which together with Mmathubudukwane, form the geographical area best known in the Kgatleng region as Dinokeng.

Held under the theme, “Promoting youth entrepreneurship and unlocking strategic partnership opportunities in the Kgatleng district,” the expo was motivated by the reality that many young people remain unemployed despite the wealth of academic qualifications they got from the numerous tertiary institutions littered around the country.

This is according to the event’s initiator and organizer Anthony Rasetshwane who subscribes to the notion that only the young people can create jobs for themselves.“We feel as young people we have a part to play, we have to create jobs. This thing that government has to create jobs for us will not take us anywhere.

We are not going to keep blaming government for lack of jobs; government does not owe us anything,” Rasetshwane shared. At the age of 35, he owns an events company that specializes in wedding photography, and he says he gathered other young business aspirants in the Mmathubukwane area to come up with the expo so as to help the area youth with opportunities to market their businesses to other exhibitors and visitors.

“We are also trying to instill in the Dinokeng youth a sense of pride and to make them realise that they do not have to go to Gaborone to get services. We are bringing together all the service providers so that the young business persons will network and know that their businesses can complement each other to offer efficient service for our people,” he added. Several exhibitors at the Expo expressed delight at the opportunity they had, saying they were able to attract potential business.