UBLS graduates to convene in Gaborone

Graduates of the now defunct University of Botswana Lesotho and Swaziland(UBLS) are on a mission to start offering scholarships to young Africans through their alumni, the UBLS Alumni Association. The alumni will host a gathering in Gaborone today to, among other plans on their agenda, form the local chapter and contribute funds towards offering scholarships to deserving young people. The
chairman of the UBLS Alumni Association and former vice chancellor, University of Cape town, Prof Njabulo Ndebele has been in Gaborone since the beginning of the week to mobilise former students to form a Botswana chapter and raise resources to realise this dream.

The UBLS Alumni Association founded in 2007, will host its second breakfast meeting in Gaborone where graduates of the UBLS, most of whom now hold influential positions in government and the private sector will be addressed by the chairman. Today’s breakfast will be held at the Blue Tree restaurant in Maruapula. According to one of the Alumni Festinah Bakwena, who is now the Botswana Ombudsman, they are in the process of registering the Botswana chapter of the UBLS Alumni Association. “The main aim is to begin to give back to the countries that supported UBLS. Most of us have now grown up to be successful adults, and we want to plough back to our communities by coming up with programmes geared at developing our human resource at grassroots level,” she said yesterday. — Mmegi