BY PHUMELELE MKHONTA
MBABANE– Bholoja is living up to his legendary status.
Through his foundation BATEF (Bholoja Business, Agriculture, Arts, Technology and Educational Foundation), the Eswatini legendary afro-jazz artist is giving back to Eswatini through empowering the youth with skills.
The ‘Zero to Hero’ artist, whose birth name is Mbongiseni Ngubane, revealed that the foundation, which was founded in 2021, currently will be imparting electronics and robotics skills to Dlangeni youth. This is part of a piloting project which will be on-going until December 17, 2022.
Currently, we will be setting up a tent every Saturday at Dlangeni and this time around, there will be professionals who will be training the youth in electronics and robotics.
When sought for comment, Ngubane said the project at Dlangeni was a pilot one, stating that their main focus would be on the creation of incubators.
“Our sessions will be practical such that the youth will be left able to make an incubator from scratch, so they could use the skill to make an income,” said the artist who doubles as a humanitarian.
Speaking about BATEF, Ngubane said the project was founded in 2012 and it has worked with different entities and professionals in working with the youth in different parts of the country.
“We have trained the youth in different sectors including sound and engineering, arts, electronics, farming, poultry and many others,” said Ngubane.
He said currently, they were generally getting support from Africa Tourism Board (ATB) and Technocrat in this electronics project.
He invited the youth to join them so they would be empowered, stating that they were yet to create programmes for the matured.
Ngubane said they welcomed support from different entities and professionals so they could impart skills among the youth.
