Virginia Chepete Interview

Co-Founder of Botswana Youth Portal, Virginia Chepete chats with us about one of Botswana’s COOLEST youth platforms, www.BotswanaYouth.com !

Who is Virginia Chepete?

I am a 24 year old lady from Molepolole, Botswana who is super passionate about helping other people to excel in everything they do and be the best they can ever be. I believe my purpose in the Universe is to help people to become all that they were created to be.

You are a business woman; life coach and motivational speaker please tell us more about your work?

I’m currently studying Medicine at University of Pretoria so I’m doing all these other things part time. I’ve always had a huge passion for business. From a young age I was involved in a couple of small scale businesses such as selling airtime and in 2009 I went into network marketing. I was part of Bemotivated today and even though it was a great company, everything was done online and what I needed was a company that would allow me to interact with people and mentor them so I left after a year and in January 2010 I became a Herbalife independent distributor, which is the company that I’m currently part of. I have a team of over 100 people in Botswana, South Africa, Czech Republic, UK and Ghana and I’m working on expanding to more and more countries. This is exciting for me because it allows me to work with a lot of people; it allows me to carry out my purpose of helping people to excel.

I am also one of the people behind MotivatedBizmind.It focuses on helping people with business plans, business proposals, business branding and regular business pep talks. It was actually founded by an amazing young man called Kago Tshidiso and he decided to bring me onboard.

About motivational speaking and life coaching, it’s difficult to say when I started because I discovered my purpose at a very young age and I have been working on fulfilling it one day at a time since then. I used to mentor a couple of students in Junior school and at some point I was given a chance to speak during assembly, prize giving ceremony and the village ward meeting. All these years I have been doing this without really labelling myself as a speaker and I started to use that label in 2011 when I decided to turn it into a career. I do a lot of seminars, I’ve started offering a couple of online training programmes such as release the lioness in you which is a programme where I teach women to be ambitious and go for what they want but still remain grounded. I teach them to be gorgeous on the outside and inside and I teach them may other things. I also have a programme called it is your time to shine where I work one step at a time with people and help them to forgive, let go of the past, programme their minds for success, discover their purpose and many other things. There are many programmes that I offer but I am more excited about these 2.I recently registered a company called Tsholofelo Motivational Speakers (PTY) LTD and one of the projects that I do under TMS is Tsholofelo mentorship programme. It is basically a programme where I groom young people to be leaders and I teach them to contribute to the development of their community. I currently have 6 TMP clubs in Botswana and we’re working on forming more.

I am also author of accelerate your way to the top and let go of the past and move on.I do daily motivation on Today’s Best radio, Inanda 88.4 FM and I write business and inspirational articles for The Zambezian newspaper and The SEED magazine.I am part of Pretoria Tshwane Toastmasters and I was recently invited to be one of the conveners for Botho Entrepreneurship hub.

You recently launched Botswana Youth Portal why youth?

I have a huge passion for youth empowerment and development. I believe young people in Botswana have so much potential and they just need to be encouraged to unleash it. I believe if they can have access to developmental information and be in a space where they are recognized and celebrated for what they are doing, they will be motivated to turn their goals and dreams into reality. I recently read an article on Sunday Standard and it confirmed what I had already observed. Botswana’s unemployment rate is amongst the worst in the world so the 1^st question that came to my mind was, “What’s going to happen to all the students who are about to graduate?” When they graduate they become part of the unemployment statistics; they then become bitter and negative and end up living mediocre lives so I believe it would be great if they can be shown opportunities that are available locally and globally. I believe if young people can be empowered and encouraged to start fending for themselves and stop depending too much on the government then maybe in the long run the rate of unemployment will decrease. I also believe that we need to create spaces where young people can think and collaborate and I believe this is one of our focus areas on Botswana Youth Portal. ln addition, I believe that we as Botswana youth need to embrace social entrepreneurship and innovation and be part of a generation that is actively coming up with solutions to address some of the challenges the country is currently facing.

How did this project come along and who are you working with on this platform?

I happened to have came into contact with a young man called Bruce Dube who is really passionate about youth development in Africa. After research and consultation for over 6 months we decided to collaborate and create a platform for Botswana youth . On our board of advisors we have some amazing people like Metlha Ishmael Mokwena- Chairperson of Botswana Youth Council, Alicia Gomez Campos-Women’s rights and equality activist from Belgium, Dr Refilwe Sello, Lilian Moremi- Founder of Botswana Student Network, Gareth Jones- Managing Director of UK Eduzine Youth Magazine, Phatsimo Mosimanegape-Youth Development Advocate (Member of the UNESCO Youth Forum Committee) and Gababusiwe Kabo Garechaba- Junior Chamber International Botswana National President .

What does Botswana Youth Portal aim to achieve?

Botswana Youth Portal is an initiative that aims at facilitating better access to developmental youth information and enable the youth to access global opportunities as well as enhancing young people’s participation in public life and to stimulate youth activism by sharing positive stories of community development and activism in Botswana. We also aim to use this platform to connect like minded young people to engage and collaborate and celebrate young people’s role in community and nation building

What resources are available on the platform?

The platform has cultivated focus in these key areas:

• Education
• Employment
• Entrepreneurship
• Health
• Personal Development
• Opportunities
• Databases
• Youth Activism
• Innovation
• Collaboration

How can other young people in Botswana and Youth Organizations work with Botswana Youth Portal?

Young people can register on Botswana Youth Portal and connect with other like minded young people . We have build BYP in such a way that youth can connect, create and share developmental information that has potential to elevate other youth. We’re also always excited about collaborating with organisations/young people who are passionate about youth development so they can just email us on [email protected] and we will see how we can work together.

How can young people access the platform?

They can visit www.botswanayouth.com and also connect with us on facebook www.facebook.com/BotswanaYouth and twitter @botswanayouth

How can young people connect with you?

Email address; [email protected]

Website address; www.virginiachepete.com and www.lwgvirgy.co.za they can also feel free to connect with me on facebook; Virginia Chepete(Daily Motivation) and twitter; @vchepete