For athletes at the pinnacle of their career, the monetary gains can be astounding. They can earn millions in monies.
The career however is short lived and unpredictable. Adjusting to life after sport may often involve redefining your goals and exploring new avenues for fulfillment. This transition can be challenging.
Recently, Wecho Trust, with the help of FIFA, hosted an off-pitch training camp for the Botswana National Senior Women’s Football Team at Selibe Phikwe. The intention was to teach the athletes life skills to survive post their sporting career. Twenty (20) athletes as well as women technical staff, coaches and BFA women’s office attended the week-long camp.
Trust founder Tsoseletso Magang says the idea to teach athletes life skills goes way back to 2020 when she was campaigning for a position in the Botswana Football Association (BFA) National Executive Committee (NEC).
“In 2020 when we went to Selibe Phikwe to campaign in the region, they hosted us at an organization called ‘Humana People to People’. It’s a center which helps the community and it has computer labs, sewing machines, garden and so forth. Seeing that, my idea came back to life.”
“I alongside my team put together the program and we engaged BFA since it is an organization I have been part of. They liked the idea, sourced funds from their end and we were able to have a successful entrepreneurship camp,” Magang elaborates.
For the BFA, the training camp afforded them an opportunity to help the athletes ‘to nurture and bring to life the incredible talents around them.’ “We are not just learning about business; we are building a community that celebrates creativity and ambition beyond sport,” a statement from the BFA says.
The workshop covered essential topics such as leadership in athletes, emotional intelligence, mental wellness, personal development, how to start a business/ company in Botswana and everything to do with tendering and what tendering is. They were also introduced to clothing and textile and also computer literacy.
“Our kids in sport tend to focus only on one thing being sport and they fail to explore other skills which can help them survive once the sport life is over. We have a lot of athletes who have retired into abject poverty and as Wecho Trust this does not sit well with us and we hope to change this,” Magang explains.
As the workshop facilitator, Magang says there were shocking discoveries during the workshop. Athletes were not aware of what starting a business in Botswana entails, or what record keeping is and how it is done.
Out of twenty athletes attending, only three were computer literate. Others said they only use laptops for watching movies and being on social media platforms. Shocking still, most of the athletes did not know how to write a curriculum vitae, with only four saying they have written it before.
With this in mind, when all was done, athletes were made to write their curriculum vitae as ‘this is their life stories and they should be in a better position to tell their stories.’ Furthermore they were taught about media engagement, time management and personal branding.