Local jet-setter launches book in Kimberley

KIMBERLEY-born global branding icon and founder of Brand Africa, Thebe Ikalafeng, launched his book, “The Traveller: Crossing Borders and Connecting Africa”, during a homecoming celebration at the Nare Boutique Hotel in the Diamond City.

The event attracted local dignitaries, business leaders, and artists, who gathered to celebrate the achievements of one of Kimberley’s own.

Ikalafeng, who has visited 122 African countries, described his book as a reflection of his travels and the experiences that shaped him. Sharing anecdotes, he joked about his lifelong restlessness, recalling fond memories of his late grandmother often giving him a tongue-lashing for not being able to sit still.

“My ouma het my getoor (my grandmother bewitched me),” he quipped. “She would tell me, ‘Thebe, you are always on your feet and on your way somewhere!’. And she was right - I was always busy. In school, I did all the extra-murals - tennis, piano, violin, choir, chess - and I was also the head boy at St Boniface … I was part of everything. I would wake up on Saturdays and would have to go and rehearse something. Reflecting on all that, I saw that those moments granted me the freedom for exploration, direction and expression.

“My grandmother and mother instilled in me a sense of adventure because they never limited or doubted my capabilities and abilities. They gave me the freedom to explore everything. That freedom enabled all the other freedoms I acquired later in life when I left South Africa to go to America, and then years later coming back to the African continent again. I thought, if I am going to write about my African journey, I will have to write about where it started, and it started in Galeshewe.”

Ikalafeng said the book not only highlights his travels but also notes his experience of being raised in a single-parent household.

“This book is a full circle - from beginning to end,” he explained. “In the book, I speak about absent fathers. I was one of those children who grew up without a father, but it did not bother me as I was raised in a very loving, caring and successful home. Three days before the book was to be printed, I went to Lesotho. My nephew called me and told me that he and my grandmother were heading on a journey to find my father. That journey, however, had nothing to do with the book. One of the chapters in the book is called “Breakthrough", as my nephew called me to say that they had found the place where my father is buried. The book starts off with me not knowing and in the last chapter I wrote, “At least now I know”. In between, not knowing who contributed to my birth, I had been on a journey to understand the continent, what it means, what binds and separates us.”

Ikalafeng said that he also wanted to change the negative narrative of how the African continent is perceived.

“Some of the research we have seen shows that 63% of the people who write about the African continent have never been to the continent. Some of us have also joined the negative bandwagon and support the negative perception of the continent because we are not writing the stories of the continent ourselves. Now, knowing the African continent, I realised that I am in a position to tell the story of the continent better.

“The other important thing is what I can contribute, not just in telling the story. I can play a role in what I do, which is the business of branding. Part of my job is creating African brands. During the research I have done over the last 14 years, it has been shown that only 20% of the brands that Africans admire are made in Africa. I also want to be a catalyst and I have decided that all the proceeds of the book, plus what I will be contributing, will go towards a trust to create a scholarship programme that enables African learners to develop new African brands.

“I am also driving a ‘Buy Africa Act’ - the continent must enact legislation that compels African governments to procure all their needs from their citizens. This is nothing revolutionary, America did it in 1933.”

Ikalafeng urged the youth to take charge of their destiny.

“We have a beautiful continent with incredible potential. The Africa we want is within our reach if we commit ourselves and also hold those we put in charge accountable.”