Mosadi Tota award winner dares to dream
“I couldn’t ignore my nation’s over-reliance on South African products…”
A decade and a half ago, 35-year-old Tshegofatso Motanka brimmed with ideas to leverage opportunities that could establish her not only as a manufacturer, but also as a significant contributor to tackling rising unemployment by changing the mindsets of young Batswana.
The Moshupa native has always been a believer in doing things for herself, identifying problems and effectively solving them, thanks to her upbringing.
Describing herself as an “imaginative and driven executive,” the determined entrepreneur shares with Voice Woman about her journey in the small, medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) sector, which began upon completion of her IGCSE in 2007 when she decided to purse a manufacturing course at CureChem Academy in South Africa.
She says she wasn’t brought up with a silver spoon in her mouth, thus was raised to be self-reliant and enterprising.
“I used to sell sweets and other snacks while at primary school. Moreover, after school, I would push a wheelbarrow around the village selling seasonal crops like nche, makgomane, and magapu.”
With a firm belief in her my own abilities, Motanka’s life philosophy is that if one person can create or invent something from scratch, nothing stops her from doing the same, regardless of the complexity or relative difficulty of making that product, or the time and resources needed to manufacture it.
“I couldn’t ignore my nation’s over-reliance on South African products. I asked myself: ‘If a peer across the border can manufacture products, why can’t I do the same?’ Whenever I buy a foreign product, I start to question what stops me creating a similar product,” the affable go-getter says, adding that it only takes a desire to start.
After graduating with Certificate in Detergents Manufacturing, she proceeded to set up Eavan’s Detergents in 2010, and soon ventured further into sharing the knowledge she acquired.
Motanka runs youth empowerment workshops for out-of-school youth.
The industrious business lady also teaches her students to produce quality stock feed for pigs, sheep, goats, cattle and fish and further helps them access funds through the Citizen Economic Development Agency (CEDA) and the process of getting their products into the retail stores.
“Batswana youth need the technical know-how to also begin manufacturing products and flood the retail industry with ‘made in Botswana’ products. I saw a gap in the market after realizing that youth need entrepreneurial skills, so that is when Eavan’s Detergents was birthed – a company that teaches fellow Batswana how to manufacture detergents and other products like beverages. We don’t only teach, we also boast tested and Botswana Bureau of Standards (BOBS) approved products like dishwashing liquid, pine gel, and washing powder. We have had successful trainings at cheaper prices ranging from P100 to P300. Our target market is individuals who wish to venture into entrepreneurship,” she explains, adding that she conducts training on weekends and weekdays, as she juggles production, training and running a mobile kitchen.
A member of the Botswana Informal Sector Association, Motanka started small, using money saved from her training sessions to purchase machinery.
“Slowly but surely, what I envisioned for my business is taking shape. I currently manufacture from my residence here in Moshupa but I aspire to move the business to a warehouse as we have since scaled up to include cocktails, wines, meat processing, and sweets, just to mention a few. My products, although not in shops yet, are doing fairly well even though we produce and sell from home; I do distribute countrywide to places as far as Kasane, Maun and Francistown. Very soon, we will be in shelves and though we have yet to produce for the export market, I look forward to showcasing in Tanzania in August. We have been invited through the Botswana Informal Sector Association, which I’m a member of, and the Women Commission Leadership,” she explains.
With a vision to one day establish a training institute and an incubation warehouse to contribute to curbing food insecurity in the country, Motanka says: “I have high hopes for my business. It will be a space where my graduates can start their manufacturing dreams and where we can do mass productions to address food shortages locally,” she says, and adds, “Rome was not built in one day, that’s my advice to aspirant entrepreneurs. Do not throw in the towel at the sight of challenges. Take risks, it’s never too late. As long as you have dreamt, with hard work focus and direction, you can achieve anything!”
The mother-of-three says she has taught her children the business of manufacturing: “I run the business with them. I aim to inspire them because I try to make manufacturing exciting for them, after all God rewards hard work.”
Indeed hard work pays dividends as Motanka was named among Mosadi Tota’s Top 100 Most Influential Women in November 2022.
In the same year, she also obtained an Advanced Certificate in Mindset Change and Leadership through the Human Resource Development Council (HRDC).
“A dream can start as a crazy idea. Believe in yourself, it shall come to pass. With God all things are possible,” she says in conclusion.