in loco Fellows 2020 Blog Series #1: Pieces of Me!

This piece of writing will reveal everything about my experiences so far. It is sometimes very difficult to really tell everything about yourself but bear with me and I will try my best. My parents named me Motebang Ramafole, I was born in the early 90’s at Queen Elizabeth 2 hospital in Maseru. I am the 3rd and lastborn son in my family. I grew up as a toddler in Maseru Sea Point, a place that in those days was deemed very dangerous so my parents decided that maybe I should go and live with my granny in another district and town called Leribe Hlotse. And for this initiative I always consider myself an origin bred of Leribe. In a local statement we say “Ke Nare”. So, it is in this district that I gained my maturity from adolescence to a young adult.

I started my studies at Hlotse Primary School, a local school that has produced giants who are now making big differences in the country at large and I guess it will not be long before I am counted as one of those giants! Molapo High School became the next step I took in my educational journey. I enrolled with them for 5 years and I am pretty sure or rather proud that I left a significant mark at the school. Molapo High School has been a very helpful institute towards building who I am, who I am to be and the life goals I have. It molded me into becoming a very good problem solver, especially with technical problems. It also created an “idea machine” in me. They say an intelligent and creative person never has adequate brain rest because their minds are always full of ideas. I would agree with that statement but I would be blowing my own horn.

Talking of “idea machine”; I remember when I was in primary school, we had a Science Club where we would showcase our scientific ideas. We even went as far as the National Science Competition where I got the Second prize in the Technology category.

As it is any high school student’s dream I advanced my studies at Lerotholi Polytechnic in 2013, where I enrolled in the School of Built Environment studying Diploma in Civil Engineering. At this stage I met a whole new different set of friends who had almost the same vision as I had and I can’t say I didn’t like that because they challenged my intelligence most of the time and that drove me to be more creative. Whenever they wanted something or an idea that was out of this world I became their benchmark. After enrolling with Lerotholi Polytechnic I worked in South Africa; maintaining railways. That was a whole different experience in my life. There are no railways in our country, it was a really challenging task to work on something that I have never seen before and I am also grateful for that challenge. It taught me so many things; from patience, ram to travelling.

As I have revealed, I like challenges so sometime in March 2020 I saw a post shared by one of my friends on social media. It was rise International inviting newly graduates to apply for an in loco program. This was an opportunity I could not miss, so I applied and I was called for an interview. Surprisingly, it was not an ordinary interview where someone would be asking questions and I would be just there answering ordinarily. It was some sort of a challenge event where we scored points throughout that event. I think it allowed us to reveal our strength in the creative world, so I guess I was not going to be an outsider when we focused on creativity.

Ever since that interview event I have changed my view towards being creative. rise has shown me a wider view of the creative world, I have also learned that every human being is creative in their own way.

Through the in loco fellowship program I have learned to work as part of a team, give others room for their creativity and adding more towards my own creative world. Responsibility is one of the many lessons I have acquired as a fellow, sharing and distribution of different roles to different people.

In this fellowship I have also improved my entrepreneurial skills. As youths of a country with a very high unemployment rate, we tend to forget that there are other ways of making it in life and that is through business. Therefore, I did not want to lose out on this type of opportunity to gain skills in entrepreneurial skills because I also run a few small businesses in my neighborhood. The fellowship will help me greatly to grow and improve my vision towards entrepreneurship.