Thandi - Impact Story
If young leader Thandi Bonno could be described in one word, that one word might very well be radiant. Thandi truly shines -- her smiley presence, sincere warmth, and passion for people light up whatever room she enters. Although she’s in the early stages of her career, Thandi has already begun to profoundly illuminate her community and country through her work in education. Humble but also driven, open-hearted but also focused, Thandi is a quintessential SBIF young leader -- and she attributes much of what she has learned and accomplished to the leadership support and guidance she has received.
Thandi was born and raised in Botswana and is currently finishing up her degree in Civil Engineering from Botswana International University Of Science And Technology. She connected with SBIF and its founder Richard Magid through one of SBIF’s partners, MCW Global. MCW Global has honed the art of finding and building up young global leaders who are brimming with vision and potential but need training, community, and encouragement to begin to actualize their dreams. Thandi’s story is the perfect example of the impact of early investment in young changemakers.
Thandi joined MCW Global’s Young Leaders program as a 19-year-old with a big heart but no formal leadership experience. In her own words: “Everytime I stepped into a place, I’d want to help. I’d come up with a way to help. But it would never be structured. I wouldn’t make a record, I wouldn’t do impact evaluation -- these are the things I learned at MCW Global! You have to do monitoring and evaluation; you have to do research to know if the project you are coming with is what people are looking for.” Thandi had been doing “mini-projects,” as she calls them: teaching basic tech literacy to people who visited the internet cafe she worked at or helping schoolchildren with government-provided laptops learn computer skills. Yet it was her training at MCW Global that equipped her to actually start her own education NGO, Ngwana wa Motswana Education Essentials. Thandi is currently persevering through the early stages, yet already making impressive gains. She has inspired a loyal team and has kept overhead so low that she has been able to self-fund all her proof-of-concept initiatives thus far, including a peer-to-peer tutoring program.
Perhaps nothing is more impressive than the way Thandi has multiplied her leadership training far beyond herself. Thandi has purposefully passed on the skills and knowledge that she learned from Richard and other mentors. She has served as an MCW Global mentor since her time in the program and built up the leadership capacity of her NGO team. She speaks with great appreciation about returning again and again to a growth-mindset booklet that Richard gave her during a session several years ago. “Everything he taught I have kept and taught others,” she observed.
At SBIF, the ripple effect of mentoring and equipping young leaders isn’t just our hope; it’s our reality. Join us to make your own ripples!