Social Work Spotlight - International Episode 19: Dr Jzo (Botswana)

Episode Date: May 9, 2026

In this episode I speak with Dr Jzo, a community practice and youth specialist, teaching and supervising students at the University of Botswana and publishing widely in the area of social work and motivation. Dr Jzo is also active in community work, regularly presenting on national radio and television on issues of social wellbeing, and hosting his own podcast and YouTube channel.Links to resources mentioned in this week’s episode:Foretelling the History of Social Work: A Botswana Perspective - https://www.ifsw.org/product/books/foretelling-the-history-of-social-work-a-botswana-perspective/Social Work Professional Organizations: A Comparative International Perspective - https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/downloadpdf/edcollchap/book/9781447373698/front-1.pdfArticle about Dr Jzo’s book “It’s Possible” - https://www.ub.bw/news/it%E2%80%99s-possible-dr-jongman%E2%80%99s-fifth-book-lights-path-belief-and-renewalThe 2026 joint conference on social work, education and social development - https://swsd2026.or.ke/YouTube channel “A Chat with Dr Jzo” - https://www.youtube.com/@AchatwithDrJzoThis episode's transcript can be viewed here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14xeBLL7IM2ydSJQztgjZ66hB1EdQcMWyVJ5-C5ljkrc/edit?usp=sharingThanks to Kevin Macleod of incompetech.com for our theme music.

Before beginning, I wish to acknowledge the traditional owners of the countries of guests featured in this podcast and acknowledge their continuing connection to land, waters and community. I pay my respects to the First Nations people, the cultures and the elders, past, present and emerging. Hi, and welcome to Social Work Spotlight, where I showcase different areas of the profession each episode, with a 12-month focus on social workers around the world as of August 2025. I'm your host, Yasmin Lupus, and today's guest is Dr. Joe, a community practice and youth specialist with a PhD in social work specialising in youth development. He teaches and supervises students at the University of Botswana and publishes widely in the area of social work and motivation. Dr. Joe is also active in community work regularly presenting on national radio and television

on issues of social well-being and hosting his own podcast and YouTube channel. Hi Dr. Joe, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. Looking forward to having a chat with you about social work in Botswana and your work as a professor and all that you're doing. Thank you very much for the opportunity. I'm glad to share the information about what we do in Botswana. Actually, there's a book chapter that came out last year where I talk about social associations in Botswana. Perfect. We'll talk about that a little bit later when we get to resources. I look forward to that. Maybe we can start by you letting me know how you got started in social work and what brought you to the profession in the first place. Okay, thank you very much.

Well, with me, it's very interesting. I got to know social work when I was about 24 years. I never knew what was social work. And I got a lift from a person that I knew, and then I asked her, what is she doing? I was a teacher by then. I asked her, what was she doing? And she said to me, she's a social worker. And then I followed up with questions. And I got interested in pursuing social work because social work was closer to what I've always wanted to be. I've always wanted to become a Catholic priest. And I trained to become a Catholic priest for six years. I did not manage to finish because of this and that. So when I listened to her, I could relate that it is way too related with Christhood.

And I thought, maybe God wanted me to serve his people, not at the altar, but with them. So that is when I decided to try out social work. And then I applied to the university. Fortunately, social work was my first choice. And then I was taken for social work. So that is how I became a social worker. That's so interesting. Were you teaching religion?

What were you teaching before that? Yeah, because I was coming from seminary, I was teaching moral education as the measure. And I was also teaching religious education as a minor. And now and then I would help at guidance and counseling, because it was related. When the guidance and counselling teacher was not available, I will assist. So coming from the seminary, because I did diploma in philosophy,

so that is why I taught moral education and religious education. Okay. And were any of the subjects that you had already studied completed at university, did any of them count towards your social work degree, or did you have to start all over again? I tried to ask them to give me permission not to do other subjects, but they refused. Because at seminary, I did psychology, I did sociology, I did English, I did economics. I thought they would waver those, but they refused and I started from scratch. But I enjoyed the journey. It was good, especially because I had to build network, I had to build coherence.

with my classmates who were seven years younger than me. So when I finished my secondary school, they were still at primary school. So I had to learn to be with these younger ones in class. So it was good. It was not a problem for me. So did you find it less about not being able to relate to them, but perhaps learning from them as much as you were learning from the teachers? It was good to learn from them. It was good to relate with them. It was good to be in an environment where you are fresh. You don't know them. They don't know you.

They are not at your age. You don't say anything. And then everything becomes an experience. You are experiencing lecturing and social work. You are experiencing learning. You are experiencing the new environment. You see, the seminary is we were 25 of us. And then going to the University of Botswana, it was 15,000 students.

So the contrast was saying you always need to learn something new every day. Yeah, no, that's such good learning. What is the context or I guess legacy of social work in Botswana? You mentioned you felt as though going into it. Perhaps there was a link between priesthood and maybe that philanthropy work or advocacy and supporting communities. Did you see a lot of those links in how social work is seen in Botswana? There is a link, especially when you create it.

When I got into the field, already I was coming from teaching. And in teaching, when I got there, when I was doing my temporary teaching, the teachers used to tell me you are going to get tired. Because I'm one person who is creative, who doesn't want to follow the status call. Who's always thinking about doing something different? So this is why I'm running my own podcast. This is why I'm running my own private company. This is why I'm always on media.

So because I get bored when I do the same thing. So I wanted to have something different. I wanted to have something new every time. When I was a teacher, I tried with coaching football. I tried with variety shows for students. All those things. I was trying to bring something new every time. and the teachers always kept saying,

you are going to get tired. We had that energy when we were studying. And I got tired because there was no support. And then when I went to the university to study social work, I was involved with the University of Botswana Social Work Society, and then later I got involved with Botswana National Association of Social Workers, because I have energy that doesn't want me to sit in one place. So if I sit in one place, I'll get bored.

So when I got into the field, I started looking at opportunities that are out there. I started doing things differently. So I could now connect training in priesthood, especially under the stigma teens, where the charisma is working with the youth. I now worked more with often children who were teenagers going into youth. And that really connected with my background in priesthood. So there was that connection that made it easy for me to always come up with new things, to always have the new energy to move on with life. So that is why social work for me, it's everything.

But I know there are colleagues who I graduated with them, who got frustrated with the field. Because if you are not going to do something, the field will not do anything for you. So you need to stimulate the field to give you something back. But if you are not giving it anything, it has not. nothing to work with, so it will give you nothing. So for me, the connection of the youth ministry and working with the youth, working with often children, so that gave me the opportunity to become a better version of myself. So that is where the connection is. It's funny you mentioned giving to the field because a couple of episodes ago I spoke with Donald in Wales, and he's also an

academic, he's written quite widely and researched, and he was saying, we were mostly talking about support for social workers once they leave university. And it was in context of if you don't continue to try to better yourself or improve the work you're doing or even professional development, that sort of thing, you're going to stagnate in terms of your professional capacity and what you're doing. If you're not furthering yourself and you're also not being challenged to further yourself, what he was saying is the risk is you end up. You're doing the same thing over and over again, and you're proliferating the issues that perhaps are systemic within the organization. An organization is telling you to do a thing, and that is the thing that gets rolled over

over and over again in practice, and it's not questions. It doesn't become critical social work at that point. It becomes following orders. The other thing I'm interested to know for you personally, having had to go back and do all of the subjects again, repeat things, but hopefully get something out of is you would have had to start again in terms of doing placements for the social work degree. I'd love to know what were those placements. So did you have two or just one? And how did that then, I guess, get you excited or help you understand what you wanted to do in terms of the social work career? Yes, I did my two field work practicums.

The first one was at the district commissioner. That was very interesting because they did. threw me to the deep end. The moment I got there, they just said, we've been waiting for someone to do this. The district commissioner works with commissioning marriages. So when people have problems, they go back to the district commissioner. So the very first case was to deal with marital issue. And I did not have any idea of how people were living in marriages. So I had to think on my feet fortunately there was one lecturer, Lograditoka, may he so rest in peace.

He was emphasizing that as a social worker, you need to think on your feet, because there's going to be a time when the client is there, you don't have time to go and refer to your books. So that really helped me to think on my feet, and that was the foundation of my love for marital counseling. I'm still doing it even now. Actually, before we started,

I was doing premartal counseling. So that is what I really loved out of that practicum. So the second practicum I was in an NGO. There was less to be done. We went there, we hanged around, and then we ended up creating jobs for ourselves, where we went to the schools that the NGO was sponsoring, and then that is how we got to learn on issues of HIV and AIDS

and prevention, preventative messages, especially to children. So both of them, they helped to shape how I see things in the profession of social work in Botswana. And what did you then do? What was your first role outside of university? Post university, I was employed by the Minister of Local Government at Ramutsuwa District. It was called South East District Council. by then, but posted at Kloquian Subdictal Council, I was employed as a social welfare officer where I worked for five years. In my five years, I fought for the specialization because

the social and community development department has different cadets. And together with my colleagues, we fought for the specialization where social workers will do social welfare, where adult educators will do community development and home economics will do home economics. So in our small section of social welfare, we also divided it into four, and then I was doing individual and family welfare. So I was working with adoption, custody, cooperating agreement, and then I was doing a lot of social skills training amongst the youth. So that is, what I was doing. And also doing a lot of counseling, mediation, premarital, marital, family disputes. So those were the things that I was doing. And as the only male in the section, there were cases

where the female social workers will say, here you need to go. Like removing children in difficult circumstances where it is really, really dangerous. I would go there, remove the children. I remember one day I had to go and take one guy to a psychiatric hospital. I had to mobilize the police so that we could go and get him. So those were dangerous times. But I really enjoyed those dangerous times because they showed me the other side of social work that I never knew. In university, we don't teach children that when you go out there, you might be facing challenges in terms of people.

people who are going to be really fighting. We just teach you that this is social work, but because I have experience, I always try to help them understand that it is not bread and butter out there. It is not bird of roses. There are challenges in the field. Each and every client will respond differently to you, and you need to also respond differently to different clients.

So that is what I experienced as a newbie in the profession of social. work. That's a significant amount of responsibility for an early career social worker. Did you have support to be able to make that sustainable? I mean five years is a good amount of time for your first role. You need to understand the demographics of our country. Firstly, by then we were still two million, the whole country, and the population of social work was less than 5,000. So we were around, I think in 2008 when I started, we were around 3,200 social workers countrywide. So you are thrown to the deep end. And I was better. I was in a village where there were other four social workers. There are those like my friend was thrown into a village,

a loke, where there is nobody. You start everything from scratch. You learn on the job. The two, attachments that you did have to help you, you hinge on that, you leverage on that. So you are given a village and then you are covering four more villages alone. So that has been the challenge. So the support, actually that was my master's research. I wanted to understand the factors that influence job satisfaction among social workers in Botswana. And one of the things that I found out was that there is no supervision, there is no support. If the supervision is there, it is administrative, it is not supervisory or educational. So they throw you to the deep end. You either swim or sink. It's up to you. This is why it is important for personal development,

because it helps you to understand the dynamics of where you are working. You keep on going there. You keep on changing with the environment. You keep on evolving. You keep on trying this and that up until you see something that is working. And you work through that. So what was not really there, especially the educational supervision was not really there. But administration, it was done. But emotional supervision, supportive supervision, educational supervision, those ones, we were really, really lagging. I'm not even sure that we have anything in place even now. Which is really concerning, but you said you then went on to do your master's, but was that concurrent? Were you doing it at the same time as working there?

Yes, my master's was concurrent with working. I started my master's immediately when I started working because our master's is full time, but you go to class in the evening. It's from 5 o'clock to 8 o'clock every day. So that is what I was. was doing with my masters. So you were doing all of that hard, hard work without the support that perhaps you needed. Study on top of that, right? So how did you manage to get through those five years? I was young. I had the energy. And it was not only the masters and working it. I was also resuscitating the Association of Social Workers. From 09 up to 2013, I was working very hard to resuscitate the Association of Social Workers, which when

I started, it was not really there, but I had to push it very hard. I became the president in 2010 up to 2014. So it was not easy, but I had to do it. But it's not only that, because when I pursued my PhD, I was also teaching at UB full time and also running Joe speaks full time and also doing PhD. And later on, I became the president of the Association of Schools of Social Work in Africa and the vice president of International Association of Schools of Social Work, IASSW. So I have always known working. So I get bored when I do nothing.

I get tired when I do nothing. So for me, it has always been my life. get time to take a break, but my schedule has always been like that. When you take something out, there's something coming in. I'm no longer studying. I'm no longer the president, but now I'm a full-time husband and father. So there's something that is always keeping me busy. So I'm always doing something. So yeah. That's so many roles for one person. Was your PhD a continuation of your master's research? It was a continuation, but different perspective. For my master's, it was job satisfaction amongst social workers in Botswana, targeting young social workers. For my PhD, it was a flip side of

how these social workers are helping young people to access entrepreneurship in Botswana. So I wanted to know the role of social work in promoting entrepreneurship, amongst the youth in Botswana. The population was almost the same, but different waiting and different approach. But it was almost amongst the youth. So for me, it was an extension, but trying to get more into understanding

how the social workers are helping the youth. In that, the other one, I wanted to know what makes social workers to be more proactive, to be more satisfied, and to be more productive. And while you're continuing to do 100 things at once, did you have to step back from some of your primary work in order to be able to take the time out to do the PhD

because it takes a lot of energy? No. I did my PhD in South Africa while I was in Botswana, and then every now and then I'll go to Stirling Bosch to meet my supervisors to work. And I had a very supportive supervisor, but he was very clear. We work on deadlines. If we work on deadlines, we are going to finish everything. But other thing is, I was enjoying it. If you go and read my PhD and then you read what I do at Joe Speaks as my company, you realize that I'm implementing my PhD. So it was, I started Joe Speaks before the PhD, and the PhD was to test the model that I'm using in the field. And I tested it, and then it is successful. Then the PhD, was a reward for testing the model. So for a lot of people who make that journey from practice to

academia, there's a bit of a lot of people struggle with that stepping away, whereas you had the opportunity or I guess the passion to do everything all at once. Was there a point at which you've had to focus more on the university? Because you're a university of Botswana lecturer now, you probably supervise higher degree research students. You're having to be a bit more of a mentor to other people, which takes a lot of time. How have you found that balance? I know you want to be doing a lot of things all at once, but does the practice take a toll because you're doing more research? I've always managed to balance things. I don't think we have too many students who would like to do research. So I think I've been having one student for masters, for research, and I think for the past

two years I did not have a student. So I've been trying to balance things right, especially between practice and academia. And also I have people who are working for me at the practice. So the load is not all on me. There are those who are doing it while I'm doing the academic stuff at the university. So that has always been what keeps me going, especially with academia. The episode just before yours, as you know, I spoke with the lovely Komotso also from Botswana, but she's studying in Germany. I wonder if you know of or can keep track of any of the other students who perhaps are doing higher degree research, but doing it in a different country.

Maybe the Botswana students, not that they're not doing research, but that they are doing other things. Not really. I did not even know where Komuzo was. I thought, after talking to you, I thought she was in Australia. She contacted me the day before yesterday and she said she's in Germany. Like, wow, what are you doing in Germany? So she's studying there, but people will just go and you don't know where people are. At some point, I asked the university to try and create at the departmental level,

create a database where we can track where our products are, but I don't think they were interested in it. So I just left it because there's a lot I'm doing so. It was just a thought. I thought somebody would be interested, but no one was interested in it. So I just left it. She was also talking about a lot of social workers who come out at the university, who unfortunately can't find or there just isn't the opportunity for students to find work in social work,

or maybe they're doing things that aren't a designated social work role. Is that your experience? Currently, we are sitting with around 1,500 social workers who are unemployed. I think our curriculum has always emphasized government employment. The way we were training them, we were training them to become government employees. We will say, no, we are training you to become, to work in any environment, but the content does not show that. And the socialization is that they are going to work for government.

When they are not employed in government, they don't consider themselves employed. When they work in the NGO sector, they are working there because they are waiting for government to employ them. So that has always been our challenge. So we have a lot of unemployed social workers because they were socialized to think and believe that they are going to work for government. And then if government doesn't employ them, they consider themselves unemployed. they don't explore other opportunities out there to try and see how they can fit into the other sectors that are out there. So that is our biggest challenge. So we have people who are sitting with skills. We have people who are sitting with talents. They can do anything. They can do

podcasting. They can do TikToking. They can do whatever it is out there to try and make a living out of their skills. But because the training itself did not really expose them to knowing that they can do better than that, they end up being unemployed because they are looking for government employment. There is research that I was already in this week, actually, that was by the UNDP, it was saying one of the major unemployment factors in Botswana is the bias towards public, service employment as compared to private sector or NGO sector. So people are always looking to be employed by government, not employed by the other sectors that are out there.

So in your practice, do you have the opportunity to employ social workers or are they from a variety of different backgrounds? Currently, I have two social workers. Yeah. And I'd love to know you've spoken a couple of times now about Joe speaks. Tell me what that is, how that started and what your focus is. Joe Spick started in, was registered in 2050, but the practice itself started long before 2050. I once went to, I think, 2010 or to 009, thereabout.

I was on radio every Sunday talking about social issues, all those things. And people started calling me for advice and all those things. And then along the way, I'm like, why don't I charge these people? Because they are getting my time on a weekend. So I started charging them Saturday, Sunday, and then that was 2010 up until 2013. 2014, I left the country. I lived in South Africa in 2014. 2015, I was back, and then I looked at the Happy People Index.

And it said, Batswana, the third and most happy people in the world. And then I said, how do we try and restore human dignity so that they can regain their happiness? Maybe that is where I should start. So that is when I started Joe Speaks. We specialize in motivation. I do a lot of motivation. We do counseling. We do life coaching.

We do social skills training. We do character building. And we also do research for organizations. that are looking for a consultant who can do research. We also do assessments for organizations such as the motor vehicle accident fund. We do assessments for them. Yeah, so that is how we started. And it's been 11 years doing that.

It's been tiring. On a day, if you have six clients, you get home, you are exhausted. So it came at the right time because it was bridging the gap between, government. People who did not want to see a social worker in government, they can easily come and see us. People who don't want to see a psychologist, they can always come and see us. So that is why we exist. So we are not funded. People pay for the service. So if you come for counseling, you pay. If we are running a retreat, people buy tickets to come to the retreats. We are running character building retreat for youth, the parents will pay for them for seven days or eight days

that they will be there. And how about the assessments that you do for the motor accident fund? Is that a public service? Yeah, the fund is government-owned, but it gets the money from the fuel levy. When you put the fuel, there's the money that they get from there. And for the assessments, those are the ones that pay us to do the assessments for them. And then we give them the reports and the recommendations on what the client or they call them the claimants or the claimant ones. That sounds similar to a program we have, but the levy is based on your compulsory insurance that you have on your vehicles.

So everyone in the state has their vehicular insurance, I guess, in case they're involved in an accident. And you can get extra level of cover on top of that comprehensive. But if you just have the basic third-party insurance, there's a percentage of that that goes to a very similar fund. So I'm glad to hear that there's something equivalent in your end. Yeah. So everyone benefits, even those who don't have cars. If you are involved in my accident, somebody who puts petrol there is funding for you. So it's a good fund. It really helps because people after the accidents, they have a lot of social issues that need to be addressed.

So it really, really helps. Yeah. And tell me about the podcast. What do you? talk about, how do you find guests? How does it work? Oh, the podcast. It started on Facebook. So I was doing the live broadcasts, it was every Tuesday at 7 p.m. on Facebook and then I later on moved it to a podcast that goes on YouTube. It's called a chat with Dr. Joe. I look for the guests. It's a social podcast in the sense that I wanted to elevate the social issues that are out there. I also want to motivate people because I think the last episode that I had was with a medical doctor who was based in Botswana but working in the Netherlands and then I also once had a medical doctor who was talking about fitness and then I had a psychologist

who was talking about psychology and everything in Botswana. I had a socialist. I had a socialist. I had a social worker who talked about almost exactly what we are doing here. So I picked those topics, different topics, and then they discuss them. The podcasting here, because of the population, we are not yet there, so it becomes expensive to do it, because there's nothing that funds it. The camera crew will come and then it will charge you, but we are still struggling with it, but we'll get there one day. I've watched one of the episodes, and I want to watch more of them and I can definitely link to that. Which one did you watch?

The cancer and palliative care one. Yeah. With Dr. Swart, you grew up together. But yeah, the cancer and palliative care one that I watched was very, very relevant because I've worked in a sort of similar area. So that was where I started and I want to check out a few of more of them. I guess my other question is on top of all of that because you are doing so many things and I know you love to do it.

Who supports you? You're at a high position in the faculty. you have to kind of make all the energy to do all this. How do you get through it and what support do you need to be a father, to be a husband, to be a professional and to come up with new ideas all the time? I think I get the support from home, from my wife. I always say to her, the support is not you telling me that you support me. The support is you creating peace in the home, making me always looking forward to going home

because that is my sanctuary. That is where I get the peace. And my HOD has always been supportive, especially of the strange ideas that I come up with. I have very strange ideas that are unconventional. So she has always supported those ideas, and it makes life easier for me to execute them because I know this is someone who believes these are good.

So she has always been my support system at work. At home, I have my wife. my kids are still are still babies. It's five and three. So they are still young. So those are the two people that I really think they support. There are other people who support the business. So it has not been that too long as a journey. There's been a journey of many people. And I also think I do support other people out there who will give back the support that I've given them here and there. I also do some work at church. So they do support here and there. So yeah, it's a community program for me. I'm a community person. So I grow in a community and the community helps me to grow.

Yeah. So it really takes a village and you've built this environment and this community, as you said, of people who can pay it forward to someone else, even if they can't help directly. Yeah. You've spoken a little bit about the challenges and Komonso has as well in the episode just past. but what are the things that you love about social work or make you proud to be a social worker? What are the best things for you? For me, social work has helped me with flexibility. Social work has taught me that you don't have to be rigid to achieve your goal. You know, the definition of social work itself, it shows you that you are multi-dimensional.

You are not one-dimensional. It has taught me that black or white does not work. most of the time is the gray area that works. So that is one thing that I like about social work. It has taught me that contentment it's about seeing the next person becoming better than you. I don't go out there and try and help people so that I may be better. I go out there, help people, impact people,

so that they may be better than where I was at a person. certain period. So that is what is social work to me. It is a calling within, it is a voice within that tells you that it is better to see the fruits, the benefits of your effort in other people. So that is the best for me in terms of social work. It's not about self-gratification. It's about contentment. It's about doing it for the next person so that the next person can do it for the next person. And when you light the other person's candle, they don't dim your light, rather they increase the light in the room and you all can see better than you keeping the light to yourself and you still can't see properly and the rest of the people can't see. But when you

light the light of the other person and they light for another person, the room will be illuminated and all of you will enjoy the excess light. So that is what social work is to. me. That's a really beautiful metaphor and I think that speaks perfectly to what we do and what you do in everyday work. Are there any resources or things that you want to maybe put in the show notes, things that people can go off and read or listen to or watch if they want to know a little more about your work or the work in Botswana in general for social work? Like I was saying, there's a book produced by Bristol University in the UK on social work associations. I contributed a chapter so they can just Google Khomeuz O Jong Man and then they will

see the work that I've been doing in terms of literary work. I've written 16 journal articles. I have a book on social work published by the International Federation of Social Workers. So when you Google Kormuzon's young men, it will just come up. Yeah. Faulting the history of social work, it was on a perspective. The social work one is possible. It's a motivational book that I released last year. August, Pesivor or Perish was the first one that I released in 2015 on the 16th of August. And then there are other two in between. So I have around six books that I wrote in the past 10 years. I have a podcast, as we've been discussing, is called a chat with Dr. Joe, J-Z-O. So that is a chat with Dr. Joe. even the TikTok is the same. TikTok, I'm almost doing the three minutes of the podcast. The things that I talk about in the TikTok are the things that I discuss in the podcast, but the shorter versions of it.

So that is where people can get my creativity and also my writings. So they are out there. So it's easy to get because of the world that we are living in. That's true. Yeah, you really have been busy. So I'm so grateful to you for taking the time to do this. Is there anything before we finish up that you wished I'd asked or that you would like to say for people who might be interested in the work you're doing?

I would say people can get hold of me so that we can collaborate. I wish to speak in different countries. So those who would be interested after listening in this podcast, they can get hold of me so that we can start collaborating. working together and also in terms of students, collaborations, where we can have our students, having webinars together, talking together, doing things together. I wish people can go to Kenya this coming June for the joint conference of the IFSW, IASW and ICSW. It will be held in Kenya, I think on the 26th to 28th of June in Nairobi, it will be at the Nairobi Convention Center.

So if people can come so that we may increase the networks. So I think that is it. And thank you very much for reaching out to talk to me. I really appreciate that. This is how we make social work to be a global profession. Thank you very much for the opportunity. Thank you. And thank you for guiding me through that process and what it's been like for you, right from the very early days when you had the seminary teaching. And back then it probably felt like you were a small fish in a big pond when you then moved to social work and everything was so big. And, you know, you were just a small part of it. But you then moved on to the marriage counseling and your first placement and then the NGO work, which helped you get sort of those grassroots social work skills. But you had significant responsibility as a new graduate. There was a lot going on. And you had to

adapt really quickly. And I think there's a lot of job satisfaction for young social workers in Botswana. There's a lot of hope. There's a lot of desire to do some really great things. And that's partly what your research has been around in terms of the role in youth work and how social workers make sense of that. But all the things that you're doing, you've got a presence in media. You've got the radio show that you had with Joe Speaks. You know, you're talking about these happiness ratings and the motivation for people, young people, older people, couples, you're publishing widely, you're building social work in your country, and just hopefully around the world as well with the collaboration that you were mentioning. So, yeah, you have many fingers in many pies, and I feel like

that's not going to change anytime soon. You're just so excited to do so many things, and the sky's the limit for you. It's just a matter of hopefully being able to get the right message through to the right ears and I think you're doing everything you can for that. So thank you again so, so much. I've loved the opportunity to speak with two social workers now in Botswana and to get a really well-rounded idea of what things are like for you and what they could be the potential for social work in Botswana and in Africa and more generally. So yeah, thank you again. I've loved this chat. Thanks for joining me this week. If you'd like to continue this discussion or ask anything of either myself or Dr. Joe, please visit my anchor page.

anchor.fm slash social work spotlight. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram and Blue Sky, or you can email SW Spotlight Podcast at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you. Next episode's guest is Peter, a lecturer at Glasgow Caledonian University, and qualified social worker with particular experience of working with children and young people who have displayed harmful sexual behavior. He has undertaken research and written extensively about abusive sexual behavior between siblings. I release a new episode every two weeks. Please subscribe to my podcast so you are notified when this next episode is available.

See you then.