This paper reports on a project initiated by the non-governmental organization Springboard Humanism (SBH) based in Molepolole, the capital of the Kweneng District of Botswana. The project aims to empower young marginalized women, particularly indigenous BaSarwa and BaKgalagari, who dropped out of school at Junior Certificate Examination (JCE) level (Year 10). The modus operandi at SBH is botho, an African philosophy emphasizing caring, sharing, showing respect and compassion. Participatory action research was conducted with 60 purposively sampled students and other stakeholders who were asked to participate. The study used interviews, observations and document analysis to generate data. The project had been running for three years (2012–2014) at the time of the study and has shown potential to generate positive outcomes and to empower marginalized ethnic minority learners, especially females. Participants in the project have managed to pass the JCE which enables them to enter senior secondary school or vocational education. It is recommended that Botswana's education system adopt this pathway to mainstream education to help ethnic minority youth improve their academic performance.

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Drawing is one of children's modes of communication which has recently excited academic inquiry in non-Western cultures. It is the means through which children express their fears, desires, anxieties and conception of phenomena. This study investigated drawings by fourto ten-year-old Botswana children in response to the human figure as an aesthetic object. The methodology involved observing a sample of forty purposively selected children engaged in the drawing process and analysing their visual productions in addition to conversational talk about their art. The study found that the human figure was the dominant aesthetic subject across ages represented in both conventionalised form and personalised imagery. Older children showed interest in culture specific imagery and demonstrated mastery of occlusion and depth cues, while four-year-old children had limited spatial awareness. The study also found that children demonstrated gradual improvement of drawing skills with age. There was no significant difference in drawing competence between sexes. Pedagogical implications are suggested to scaffold children through the stages of art development.

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This study was carried out at a time when most African Indigenous Churches (AICs) in southern Africa were busy rebranding their spirituality and theology. This rebranding was as a result of serious competition in an environment where a new church was emerging every day. Thus, we argue that, due to this religious contestation, the Johane Masowe Chishanu yeNyenyedzi (JMCN) Church has inculcated/borrowed certain religious artefacts, symbols and practices which had never been part of African Christianity in Africa. As a result, this religious movement has inculcated certain African/Islamic religious objects of faith in a bid to demonstrate inclusivism and religious tolerance. In this paper, we discuss the JMCN Church’s religious artefacts, symbols and practices such as clay pots (mbiya), big clay pots (makate), the wooden staff, decorated religious flags, congregating on Fridays and the use of crescent and star as its religious symbols. Artefacts, symbols and practices are borrowed from both African Traditional Religions (ATRs) and Islam. However, what remains critical in this study, is whether the JMCN Church, after its inculcation of such African traditional religious and Islamic religious elements of faith retains the tag, “a Christian church,” in the rightful sense of the traditional taxonomy of the term, “Christian church,” even though the movement itself claims to be a Christian church in Zimbabwe.