BBC Information, Gaborone
Lesego Chombo/InstagramLesego Chombo’s enthusiasm for all times is as infectious as her achievements are spectacular: she has received the Miss Botswana 2022 and Miss World Africa 2024 crowns, is a working lawyer, has arrange her personal charitable basis – and made historical past in November, changing into Botswana’s youngest cupboard minister.
She was simply 26 years previous on the time – and had clearly impressed Botswana’s incoming President Duma Boko, whose Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) had simply received a landslide, ousting the social gathering that had ruled for 58 years.
It was a seismic shift within the politics of the diamond-rich southern African nation – and Boko, a 55-year-old Harvard-trained lawyer, hit the bottom working.
His foremost focus, he stated, was fixing an financial system too reliant on diamonds, telling the BBC forward of his inauguration that he needed younger individuals to be the answer – “to develop into entrepreneurs, make use of themselves and make use of others”.
Key to this was discovering an appropriate ambassador – and Chombo was clearly it: a younger girl already dedicated to varied causes.
He made her minister of youth and gender.
“I’ve by no means been extra proud to be younger,” she instructed the BBC on the ministry’s headquarters within the capital, Gaborone.
“I am a teenager dwelling in Botswana, enthusiastic about youth growth, gender equality, but additionally so passionate in regards to the growth of youngsters.”
The wonder queen didn’t marketing campaign to be an MP – she is what is named a specifically elected member of parliament – and is now certainly one of simply six feminine MPs within the 69-member Nationwide Meeting.
Chombo stated changing into an MP after which minister got here as a whole shock to her.
“I received appointed by a president who had by no means met me,” she stated.
“Miss World and the journey that I believed I used to be speculated to pursue as my closing vacation spot was solely the platform by which I’d be seen for this very function.”
It was her crowning as Miss Botswana in 2022 that raised her profile and enabled her to marketing campaign for social change, whereas making an attempt to encourage different younger girls.
It additionally gave her the chance to arrange the Lesego Chombo Basis, which focuses on supporting deprived kids and their dad and mom in rural areas – and which she continues to be concerned with, its initiatives funded by company corporations and others.
“We attempt to have a world the place we really feel seen and heard and represented. I am very thrilled that I occur to be the very essence of that illustration,” she stated.
Lesego Chombo/InstagramAs she ready for final 12 months’s Miss World pageant, she stated: “I actually put myself within the zone of service. I actually channelled it for this huge crown.”
Now in political workplace, she is conscious of the expectations positioned on her in a rustic the place roughly 60% of the inhabitants is under 35 years.
It additionally has a excessive stage of unemployment – 28%, which is even larger for younger individuals and girls who’ve restricted financial alternatives and battle systemic corruption.
Chombo stated this was one thing she was decided to alter: “At the moment in Botswana, the charges of unemployment are so excessive.
“However it’s not simply the speed of unemployment, it is also simply the sphere of youth growth.
“It is missing, and so my want is to create an ecosystem, an surroundings, a society, an financial system through which youth can thrive.”
Chombo stated her plan was to develop a complete system that nurtured youth-led initiatives, strengthened entrepreneurship and ensured younger individuals had a seat on the desk when choices had been being made.
With Botswana’s anti-corruption coverage present process a rigorous evaluation, she stated this might make sure that quotas for younger entrepreneurs – when state departments and companies put out tenders for items and providers – had been really reached.
The federal government has begun a 10-month forensic audit of presidency spending that can embody 30 state-owned enterprises.
Certainly President Boko is intent on cracking down on corruption, seeing this as a solution to bolter investor confidence and diversify the financial system – one thing his deputy has been searching for to do on latest journeys to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Switzerland.
And a key deal has now been secured with UAE-based CCI World, a supplier of enterprise course of outsourcing, to open a hub in Botswana.
Whereas youth growth is a central pillar of her work, gender fairness additionally stays near her coronary heart.
Her quick time in workplace has coincided with a rising outcry over gender-based violence.
In line with a United Nations Inhabitants Fund (UNFPA) report, over 67% of ladies in Botswana have skilled abuse, greater than double the worldwide common.
“It hurts to know that it may very well be me subsequent,” she admitted.
A month into her appointment, she was criticised for voting in opposition to an opposition movement in parliament to create “peace desks” at police stations and Justice of the Peace courts to shortly take care of victims.
On the time she stated such provisions already existed inside the regulation and what was wanted was extra public consciousness.
This was adopted in January by a police report noting that not less than 100 girls had been raped and one other 10 murdered through the festive season – this precipitated public outrage with many lashing out at her on social media over the problem.
The minister reiterated – on a number of events, together with earlier than parliament in March – that Botswana had many legal guidelines and methods in place and what was vital was to make sure these they had been really utilized.
However she instructed the BBC the federal government could be pushing for the implementation of a Gender-Primarily based Violence Act, geared toward closing authorized loopholes which have lengthy hindered justice for survivors.
She stated she was additionally advocating a extra holistic method, involving the ministries of well being, training and native authorities.
“We wish curriculums that promote gender fairness from a younger age,” Chombo stated.
“We need to educate kids what gender-based violence is and easy methods to stop it.
“It can boil right down to inclusion of instructing gender fairness at house, how dad and mom behave round their kids, how they mannequin good behaviour.”
Lesego Chombo/InstagramShe has additionally been vocal about the necessity to handle points affecting males, significantly round psychological well being and constructive masculinity, encouraging chiefs “to make sure that our patriarchal tradition shouldn’t be actively perpetuating gender violence”.
“I hear lots of people say: ‘Why do you converse of ladies greater than males?’
“It is as a result of because it stands in society, girls are largely prejudiced [against].
“However once we converse of gender equality, we’re saying that it needs to be utilized equally for everybody. However what we try for is gender fairness.”
Chombo, who studied regulation on the College of Botswana, stated she was grateful to her mom and different robust girls for uplifting her – saying that ladies needed to work “10 occasions more durable” to succeed.
“[My mother] has managed to create an surroundings for me to thrive. And rising up, I received to grasp that it isn’t a simple factor.
“As girls, we face so many pressures: ‘A girl can’t do that. A girl cannot do this. A girl cannot be younger and in management.’ I am at present going through that.”
She additionally credited Julia Morley, the CEO of Miss World, for serving to her: “She has managed to create a legacy of what we name magnificence with a function for thus many younger women the world over.
“She has simply impressed us so deeply to take up social duty.”
Chombo is severe about this. The wonder queen-cum-lawyer-cum-minister is aware of she has made historical past – however can be conscious that her actual work has solely simply begun.
“Influence. Tangible affect. That is what success would appear like to me,” she stated.
“I need to look again and see that it’s there and it’s sustainable. That once I depart, another person is ready to carry it by.”
Extra reporting from Harmless Selatlhwa in Gaborone
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