In 2022, post Covid 2019, SOS Children’s Villages in Botswana embarked on a project to empower young people who were severely affected by the pandemic.

The project called Collective Communities, targeted 1000 young people aged 18-35 years old, mostly women, living in communities across all 12 locations where SOS Children’s Villages Botswana operates and former SOS care leavers who are unemployed.

Research made showed that lack of entrepreneurial skills among the beneficiaries results in “high project failure, high loan default rates and high demand for funding by the youth” (Mmegi Online, 2021). SOS Children’s Villages, therefore, funded by Standard Chartered Foundation, and in partnership with other stakeholders, started several intervention projects with the objective to offer young people vocational education, entrepreneurship training, digital training, and incubation facilities.

Last week one of them, which is a farm project, was officially handed over at the SOS Farm in Ruretse. Beneficiaries of the project testified that they have gained necessary knowledge through trainings and practical experience at the farm and are in a position to utilise existing government funding schemes to improve their livelihoods.