I had a chance to attend career workshop which was organized and held at Masa Primary School in Gaborone after Ministry of Agriculture was invited to share knowledge with the children about the importance of Agriculture.
Workshops of this nature could help the ministry of Agriculture by changing the mindset of the people and change their perception regarding the agricultural sector.
Senior Technical Officer in the ministry of agriculture under Campaigns, Mr Mmoloki Ntesang told the students to desist from seeing agriculture as a dirty job. He encouraged the students to join the agricultural sector in future as there are lots of opportunities in and there is a lot of support from the government.
I was privileged to be one of the presenters in the workshop; my task was to talk about the importance of agriculture and some of the paths one can take to end up working in the agricultural sector. Public speaking is one of the pillars of PR so I managed to have that chance of addressing a large group of students.
Other organization which were present at the workshop were, The Botswana Police, teaching the students about the drug abuse and other police related issues, YOHA, an organizations that deals with HIV/AIDS issues, Secondary school teacher, shared with the students what they should expect at secondary school and lastly a farmer, who shared his experiences of farming to the students and he also encouraged the students to join the agricultural sector.
I enjoyed my three months as an intern at the Ministry of Agriculture, Botswana. I was never treated like an intern; I was just like any other ministry officers.
I will always remember that “the best manure of any agricultural enterprise is the daily foot prints of a farmer’
This is my last blog post, now I will have to concentrate on writing the internship report.
See you in the PR industry!!!
7 comments:
I think this kind of career workshops can help grow the agricultural sector, as more Botswana students would be aware of what are some of the services and financial support they can get from the Ministry to start their own agriculture related business. The perfect target audience could be the forms 5 students as some of them will not manage to go to tertiary institutions.
Furthermore the agricultural sector needs to adopt PR strategies to make sure that the public understand the message.It is very good that the agricultural sector in Botswana has realized that the younger generation lack agricultural skills, but they should also adopt some of the activities during workshops like this that will make students interested in the subject. If any activities were done you can give us hints on their tactics that made primary students get interested in the workshop.
Thank you Florence for your comment, i have to agree with you on the target audience issue, is better the ministry target form 5 school leavers and show them the importance of agriculture so as to start businesses and end up creating employment for others.
i have to make it clear that this workshop was organised by the said school, so the ministry was only invited at the eleven hour and that made the preparation a bit difficult so we end up making a formal presentation, but i have to say i was impressed by the way students where involved during the question and answer session.
so i agree again that we could have approached the workshop differently and made it youthful so that students will feel at home. Thanks once again for your comment.
true that Mr Pesi
in regard to what you just said i got to realize one thing when dealing with Batswana as your public .taking culture into consideration when planing your tactics is vital ... Batswana are a very active out spoken society that when you reach out to them you need active interaction so that can interest them ..so things like public speaking and many more interactive public events are good stategic tool when dealin with that kind of a public.
and i really admirer the ministry's gestures of dealing with the public ..it diversify ,it is not only confined to its agricultural sectors for example it took the liberty to address on other social issues like Aids ,,,they did not sit back and say it a job for the ministry of health...true csr ...
it must have been quite an experience working with such an active department!!!
hey Bakang.I see you enjoyed your internship.You got a chance to feel,see and touch what we only learn of in class.I am also undergoing my internship at the moment and i would say,this intenship really helps us to see what those books have been preaching to us.Being an intern is a great experience to have and it really opens your eyes to the world and the workplace at large.I am enjoying my inetnship as we.. and although it is a lot of work,i get to see and learn from those who have been in the industry for a longer time.
Getting to the topic at hand,i would say you got a great priviledge of working with the ministry and when it comes to things like AIDS andfood,we are all affected and we all must know.You made your contribution,you made a mark and taught our great,open minded community a lot.Keep it up.See you in the PR industry!!
I think this kind of career workshops can help grow the agricultural sector, as more Botswana students would be aware of what are some of the services and financial support they can get from the Ministry to start their own agriculture related business. The perfect target audience could be the forms 5 students as some of them will not manage to go to tertiary institutions.
i understand dealing with minors is not an easy task, can you please elaborate which strategies and activities did you use to make the children interested in your workshop.
Hi Teekay and Kitso
I have to agree with you Teekay that we should always take into account the culture of the people you are addressing. like you said Batswana are people who believe in talking, they want their views to be heard, they believe in dialogue, so it is important that public speaking becomes one of the tactics to address issues affecting them.
And on the AIDS issues, the ministry should also take part in fighting HIV/AIDS because if not the very disease will kill the farmers and the agricultural sector will then suffer at the end.
Thank you Florence.
wonderful question, the group that we addressed at that school was the standard 7 only, and the students are taught agriculture at the school, so we were to elaborate on some of the aspects which their teacher may have not taught them about.
Again some of the question can only be answered by the Ministry of agriculture officers as the teachers are not that equipped with the latest developments in the ministry.
we used broachers, magazines, pamphlets, and even some displays in the form of picture in the school hall for them to go around having a look.
we also came with local language magazine and the English one so that they can be placed at the school library for everyone to have a look when they want them.
on our display table we also had some guideline of how to obtain financial support from the government through the ministry of agriculture to start an agricultural enterprise. i have to say the response of the students was good, they asked a lot of questions. Their teacher we also very much interested on how the government will support their enterprises.
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