Excerpts
CSNews: Could you please introduce yourself
G. G: My name is Gogontlejang Phaladi, 19 years old from Botswana. I’m an activist, advocate, founder and Executive Director of Gogontlejang Phaladi Club Hope Project, a nonprofit organisation that has been running for the past 14 years and I’m also a content contributor to the Genderlinks online news feed, work for radio part time. I’m a law student and a United Nations campaign facilitator.
CSNews: What inspired you to go into activism?
G. G: I started with philanthropy before going into activism. I start activism for 2 reasons, first was that my mom was involved in a two accidents that left her paralysed for three years and it made me realise we have to appreciate every moment in life because anything can happen at any time. And the thought of almost loosing my mom drove that fact home. As a child coming from a strong Christian background, we were taught that the best way to thank God was by giving back to the community so as a result of this, I started doing charity work. The second reason I realised that my country Botswana had the dubious distinction of having the highest HIV prevalence rate which left many children orphaned. The government was trying but it wasn’t enough so that was my entry point into motivational speaking and Advocacy. I established Gogontlejang Phaladi Pillar of Hope Project(GGPHP) to help the less fortunate and disadvantaged by asking people to contribute used clothes, books and other things which is then given to those in need. The government was helping by providing uniforms and school, books but these children didn’t have other clothes. In the process, I realised many children were being subjected to all sorts of abuse and injustice. And that’s when I began speaking out against discrimination, inequality.
CSNews: What challenges have you faced since you became an advocate/activist
G. G: I face challenges almost everyday of my life, even now when I have recognition to a certain extent. The first challenge was that it took 7 years to register my foundation because people didn’t understand how a child could want to do such a thing. The second is that some people thought I shouldn’t do philanthropy because it’s a duplication of what the government was already doing and I found that unbelievable because there is so much need out there and it can never be enough. Another thing was at the beginning I was told not to sing the National anthem during my initiatives because protocol dictates that only people of a certain reputation should recite it until the former president came to my aid and said the National anthem could be sung wherever nation building was being discussed. Some people thought I was being too ambitious and I suffered all sorts of criticism. At times when say certain things they disregard it as childish talk until they realise that my vision is attainable.
CSNews: In all your work with youths, what do you think stops them from striving to achieve more.
G. G: I think youths striving is a two way street, in most cases the environment is not enabling for youths to thrive for example Africa is a patriarchal society and for a young women who decides to go into politics would need to do much more than her male counterpart. On our part, we are quite a distracted generation, we get distracted easily and speaking from my country’s perspective, we are quite complacent. Our government has set grounds for dependence, we look to the government for everything which doesn’t make us competitive. We usually prefer to be spoon fed instead of working hard. We need to understand that life is really what you sow, we need to be the change we want to see and not just talk about it. If we do these, adults would have more trust in us. We need to earn power, influence, dignity is to be earned. You don’t command it, you earn it.
CSNews: What do you think the State of mind of the Nigerian youth is from the discussion and contributions?
G. G: I’m greatly bothered by the lack of women involvement in Nigeria judging from this conference, all the panels are dominated by means it makes me wonder if this is the true face of Nigerian women in politics, are they on the periphery or they are not keen to participate? Moving on Nigerians are quite passionate about their country and politics which is good. I realised young people feel they can’t compete because they lack the economic and social power to do so. I would suggest that the playing field be levelled in such a way that they can participate either by setting aside a quota for young people and women in parliament.
CSNews: Do you have any plans to run for political office
G. G: I’ve never run for political office, I don’t intend to run in the near future but I do intend to become the president of Botswana.
