So you're thinking Botswana...

So you’re considering Botswana! Good choice!

Another Amazing Sunset
 

Work Life- For my placement I am working at TOCaDI, also known as the Trust for Okavango Cultural and Development Initiatives. Within TOCaDI I am working with the Shakawe Crafts Centre project.  Basically how the Centre operates is we travel to surrounding settlements and purchase baskets from the registered groups there, and then bring them back to the Crafts Centre in Shakawe to sell them. The idea of this project is to give the producers, mostly women, the opportunity and the skills in order for them to improve their livelihoods.

The project has not been up and running for too long so there is a lot of basic marketing and promotion activities we have done so far.  We (Heather and I) have created basic press kit materials since arriving; posters, business cards, pamphlets etc…

I am working on a marketing plan that can be used for the rest of my placement and for use in the future as well.  In the New Year, I am going to be conducting a survey that I created to collect baseline data on the producers. This is important so that the progress and impacts of the project can be tracked when carried out next year.

One of my Favourite Baskets

 

Possible future tasks:

-          Stock diversification: right now the Centre mainly focuses on baskets, but there is a lot of room to grow. We are currently looking into traditional jewellery, pottery and wood work as other craft options.
 
-          Training and workshops for the producers: it is important not only to give the producers the money for their baskets as means of improving their livelihoods but it is also important that we also offer them other skills and knowledge.  Workshops on topics such as gender equality or health related topics could be very beneficial for the producers.

-          Continuing to create relationships with wholesalers across the county. This will allow us to sell more baskets and therefore allow us to buy more from the producers ( yay more trips to the field). Ideally the Crafts Centre would operate as a self-sustaining social enterprise, which is something future interns could work to as well.  If the Centre was able to become a social enterprise than it would not be reliant solely on donor funds, which can be frustrating as many of my classmates would agree.

Since this is a relatively new project, TOCaDI is open for suggestions and there are a lot of different ways to make this placement work for you. Although this is not what I was expecting to be doing on my placement, I am using it as a learning experience and have adapted to the situation.  No matter you where you end up on  your placement, if you go into it thinking you are going  to have a bad time, the you probably are. If you go in with a positive attitude, you will have a much better experience.

Traditional Dancing in the Okavango Region

Shakawe- Shakawe is so far one of my favourite parts of my whole Botswana experience. I love the location: situated right on the Okavango River you could not get a more beautiful place. We often hear hippos grunting, and so far I have seen more bird species than I have in my entire life. The people here are also very friendly. Although I still get the occasional marriage proposal, the small village (about 6,500 people) has a very strong sense of community; people are always saying hi and are very welcoming.  We are not Setswana experts by any means but every time we attempt to talk Setswana, people are very appreciative of us trying to learn. We are surrounded by many remote settlements, many of which I have had the opportunity to visit and those trips are one of my favourite parts.

Shakawe is rural, it’s no Hanoi or Kathmandu that’s for sure: Choppies is the only grocery store, there are no stop lights or street lights for that matter and the most traffic you will ever run into is when there is a herd of cows or donkeys on the road, but I have grown to love the town over the last 3 months.