Galaletsang Setlabosha
Social Development — Galaletsang Setlabosha
Community builder
EMAIL: [email protected]
facebook.com/galaletsanghaxs
Galaletsang Setlabosha is an inspirational young volunteer, community worker and a dedicated man with a vision for empowering his local community.
A graduate with a degree in human resources, this 25-year-old volunteers his time and skills at the Mwaatimwaya Rehabilitation Centre. There, Setlabosha has been tasked with managing the care and training of patients with irreparable visual impairments.
A teacher and trainer, he works with instructing them in how to use Braille equipment and other necessary skills. Not only focused on their individual development, he wants to empower them as active members within their communities. He does this in practical ways such as by mobilising them to involve themselves in community activities like kgotla meetings, and joint initiatives such as general cleaning campaigns.
He includes as part of his work collecting about blind visually impaired patients from their homes and bringing them safely at the rehabilitation centre every day. There, he carries out his lessons such as teaching them the Braille reading and writing system, after which he takes them back to their homes after lessons.
“Part of my duty is also to encourage the blind to take part in community activities, and raise funds for the organisation. For example, we are starting a horticulture project that will produce fruits and vegetables to be sold in the village. I am also responsible for empowering the disabled, by encouraging them to actively partake in community activities,” Setlabosha says.
Setlabosha also volunteers at Etsha Junior Secondary School, where he gives remedial lessons to learners pursuing business studies curriculum. Business Studies is a national academic subject taught in schools which seeks to equip students with the basic elements of accounting, finance, marketing, organisational studies and economics.
After realising that local students at the school were not doing well in business studies because of a serious shortage of qualified teachers, Setlabosha volunteered to use the skills and knowledge he acquired while studying human resource management at university to assist the students. His sustained volunteering efforts have borne fruit, as the students’ results have greatly improved.
On top of these sustained efforts, Setlabosha also provides remedial lessons to elderly students who have enrolled at Botswana’s College of Distance and Open Learning (BOCODOL). Despite the barriers of disability, age or resources, he is clearly personally committed to BODOCOL’s motto of “bridging the education gap”, and devotes his time to the goal of no one being left behind in Botswana’s Vision 2016. — Spike Ganetsang