Lesego 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She was simply 26 years outdated on the time – and had clearly impressed Botswana’s incoming President Duma Boko, whose Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) had simply received a landslide,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 get together 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 operating.
His predominant focus, he mentioned, was fixing an economic system too reliant on diamonds, telling the BBC forward of his inauguration that he wished younger folks to be the answer – “to develop into entrepreneurs, make use of themselves and make use of others”.
Key to this was discovering an acceptable 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 residing in Botswana, enthusiastic about youth growth, gender equality, but additionally so passionate concerning 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 one in every of simply six feminine MPs within the 69-member Nationwide Meeting.
Chombo mentioned changing into an MP after which minister got here as a whole shock to her.
“I bought appointed by a president who had by no means met me,” she mentioned.
“Miss World and the journey that I believed I used to be speculated to pursue as my remaining vacation spot was solely the platform via which I’d be seen for this very position.”
It was her crowning as Miss Botswana in 2022 that raised her profile and enabled her to marketing campaign for social change, whereas attempting to encourage different younger ladies.
It additionally gave her the chance to arrange the Lesego Chombo Basis, which focuses on supporting deprived children and their dad and mom in rural areas – and which she remains 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 mentioned.
Lesego Chombo, now 27, is an affiliate at a regulation agency in Gaborone [Lesego Chombo/Instagram]
As she ready for final 12 months’s Miss World pageant, she mentioned: “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 folks and ladies who’ve restricted financial alternatives and battle systemic corruption.
Chombo mentioned this was one thing she was decided to alter: “At present in Botswana, the charges of unemployment are so excessive.
“But it surely’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 setting, a society, an economic system by which youth can thrive.”
Chombo mentioned her plan was to develop a complete system that nurtured youth-led initiatives, strengthened entrepreneurship and ensured younger folks had a seat on the desk when choices had been being made.
With Botswana’s anti-corruption coverage present process a rigorous assessment, she mentioned this might be certain that quotas for younger entrepreneurs – when state departments and businesses put out tenders for items and providers – had been truly reached.
The federal government has begun a 10-month forensic audit of presidency spending that can embrace 30 state-owned enterprises.
Certainly President Boko is intent on cracking down on corruption, seeing this as a strategy to bolter investor confidence and diversify the economic system – one thing his deputy has been looking for to do on current journeys to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Switzerland.
And a key deal has now been secured with UAE-based CCI International, a supplier of enterprise course of outsourcing, to open a hub in Botswana.
“It hurts to know that it might be me subsequent””, Supply: Lesego Chombo about gender-based violence, Supply description: Botswana’s youth and gender minister, Picture: Lesego Chombo
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 keeping 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 might 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 rapidly take care of victims.
On the time she mentioned 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 no less than 100 ladies had been raped and one other 10 murdered throughout the festive season – this precipitated public outrage with many lashing out at her on social media over the difficulty.
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 essential was to make sure these they had been truly utilized.
However she instructed the BBC the federal government could be pushing for the implementation of a Gender-Primarily based Violence Act, aimed toward closing authorized loopholes which have lengthy hindered justice for survivors.
She mentioned she was additionally advocating a extra holistic strategy, involving the ministries of well being, schooling and native authorities.
“We would like curriculums that promote gender fairness from a younger age,” Chombo mentioned.
“We wish to train kids what gender-based violence is and how one can forestall it.
“It’ll boil right down to inclusion of educating gender fairness at dwelling, how dad and mom behave round their kids, how they mannequin good behaviour.”
Lesego Chombo has used her fame to push her initiatives for social change – specializing in younger folks [Lesego Chombo/Instagram]
She has additionally been vocal about the necessity to handle points affecting males, significantly round psychological well being and optimistic masculinity, encouraging chiefs “to make sure that our patriarchal tradition just isn’t 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, ladies are largely prejudiced [against].
“However after we converse of gender equality, we’re saying that it needs to be utilized equally for everybody. However what we attempt for is gender fairness.”
Chombo, who studied regulation on the College of Botswana, mentioned she was grateful to her mom and different sturdy ladies for uplifting her – saying that girls needed to work “10 instances tougher” to succeed.
“[My mother] has managed to create an setting for me to thrive. And rising up, I bought to understand that it is not a simple factor.
“As ladies, we face so many pressures: ‘A lady can’t do that. A lady cannot try this. A lady cannot be younger and in management.’ I am at the moment 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 goal for thus many younger women internationally.
“She has simply impressed us so deeply to take up social duty.”
Chombo is critical 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 impression. That is what success would seem like to me,” she mentioned.
“I wish to look again and see that it’s there and it’s sustainable. That after I depart, another person is ready to carry it via.”
Extra reporting from Harmless Selatlhwa in Gaborone
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[Getty Images/BBC]
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