MATLHOMANE WALKS INSPIRED BY WIN DILWANA REWARDS COMPETITION
Dilwana Online Shop in partnership with New Era College of Arts, Science & Technology and Mmegi newspaper hosted an essay competition prize giving ceremony on Thursday at the NEC campus in Gaborone in July 2020 which was open to all Batswana.
The Head of Department Taboka Size from New Era pointed out that the Construction Department has always been a part of the institution since it was established in 2009. He said the college primarily offers engineering courses and has transformed Botswana’s engineering landscape in the past 10 years. “The construction industry is an integral part of any economy because wherever you go there is no where you won’t find a construction project but this industry is faced with challenges which include the pandemic,” Size reiterated. He said it is the responsibility of the construction industry people to try and deal with the issues plaguing the industry.
The Representative of Dilwana Saeed Arani talked about the requirements of the competition which was held under the title, ‘The impact of Covid 19 and proposed solutions for the Built and Construction Industry’ with students expected to write at least a 750 words long article. He also highlighted their partnership with Mmegi Online meant reach a larger audience through which advertisements were posted online in Both Mmegi and Dilwana online platforms, on the other hand New Era was responsible for awarding prizes to the winners.
“As many other projects all over the world, Dilwana was also affected by the pandemic which why we decided to come up with an idea to talk about the COVID-19 ,“Arani remarked. Further saying that since they are working in the construction and home décor market place business they came up with an idea to have this competition with New Era College and Mmegi newspaper.
He also shed some light about Dilwana, which was started in July 2019 as an online home décor adviser platform but is growing its business profile in 2020 to diversify to a multivendor online shop platform which give the opportunity to local sellers to open their own shop spaces within the platform and sales their products online. The commercial manager of Mmegi Lone Koosenye said the corporate social responsibility drive of Mmegi is to assist youth especially in the startup sector to grow their businesses which he said was the motivation behind their partnership in the competition. He cited the importance of startup projects to the economy of the country and its development.
Prizes were awarded to 3 entrants with Kefilwe Matlhomane won the first position walking away with a brand new Lenovo laptop, the second prize winner Priyanka Choudhary was awarded a Samsung Galaxy Tab A while the third position winner Lone Mojalemotho walked away NEC gift hamper.
Matlhomane when commenting about her participation in the competition said,”I think I saw the competition advertised in August last year but at the time the deadline had passed and I saw it again with the deadline extension so I decided to enter it.” She pointed out that she submitted her article late and was surprised to have won the competition despite her late submission.
She has Construction Company which is currently and she is also into essay writing something she said the win encouraged her to pursue going into the future.