It is difficult if not impossible to be a person of influence or even a person of substance without making an error of judgement.  And of course one does not know that one is making an error until after the event. 

It is also impossible to be a person of influence or substance without taking risks. So one looks at the job to be done and the potential impact of one’s involvement. As a servant leader one always wants to err on the side of doing too much rather than too little I think. And then one assesses the risk - potential reputational damage being the greatest. 

The thing is, you don’t know what you don’t know. You don’t really know another person’s intent or agenda in co-opting you to a project. You don’t know how deep their sincerity lies when they say they need your help. But worst of all - you don’t know what they don’t know which could potentially place you both on a path you could never have foreseen. All of this not knowing puts you in harm's way.

However, if we made our choices with a prevailing sense of not knowing, our lives would come to a grinding halt. No one would get married, or have children, or enter into business partnerships or even start anything new. Not knowing cannot therefore be a reason not to do. 

When it comes to helping; when it comes to effecting change; when it comes to contributing to a vision you believe in, unless one has a solid reason not to, one must take the chance and offer the gifts one has. Because whether you are a singer or a strategist, your input is valid and valuable. 

So I would rather you didn’t pretend to know for sure. I’d rather you didn’t quote scripture or best selling books at me to justify your involvement. If you simply said, “To be honest with you, I don’t know. I’m not sure; but I’d like to try and help if I can....” If you said this, I would understand you, because haven’t we all been in an awkward spot at some point? A spot where we really can’t be sure of what’s going on, or if our team-mates are sincere? So if you said this to me, and if your choice turned out to be a bad one, me and maybe 13 million other people would find it easy to forgive you. If you just acknowledged that you too, are not too sure. 

***

Having been a Twitter follower of an organization called Akili Dada for some time now, I only recently discovered, (with much delight, I might add)  what the name actually means.  In Ndebele the equivalent would be Cabanga Dade! In other words, use your brain, sister!
I was tickled by the cheeky tone of this expression, as well as the fact that it is a ‘woman to woman’ expression of encouragement and exhortation.  But more than this, I was moved by the focused approach to helping young  women develop leadership skills through education.  The education of girls is something that is recognised the world over as one of the most important requirements for promoting sustainable development and economic progress.
Education gives girls options that would otherwise not be available to them, it raises their sense of self worth and empowers them with knowledge about the world around them.  Educating girls is the first step in helping women become part of the larger decision making process, equipping them with social and intellectual skills that will enable them to particulate fully as citizens of the world and to protect themselves from harm.
Educating girls leads to higher wages,  lower birth rates, reduced maternal and child mortality and better health and education for the next generation.  It has been demonstrated that when education for girls is improved the country enjoys greater health and economic prosperity.  Research shows the every extra year of schooling for girls cuts the risk of infant mortality  by 5-10% and  increases their lifetime income by 15%.  Women invest more in their families and communities than men do, so the dollars spent educating girls are more certain to come back.  Studies have shown a direct correlation between increased rates of girls school enrolment and increased GDP.
Yet in spite of all the well documented benefits that can accrue not just to individuals but to communities and countries as a whole, the education of girls remains a contentious issue in the developing world.  Ita has long been reported that as many as a third of Zimbabwe’s girl children are failing to attend school because of reasons such as poverty, abuse and cultural practice.
Grants made by organisations such as DFID have increased the opportunities for girls in Zimbabwe enabling tens of thousands of girls in the poorest rural communities to enroll in and complete secondary school. 
But while this seems generous and is certainly helpful, it made me wonder whether we really need to wait for the DFIDs, the UNICEFs and the Camfeds to help us educate our girls.
Akili Dada started off as a local initiative, created by a local woman who understood the local problems and local needs. While the NGO directory does list some organisations in Zimbabwe that address the education of girls, I believe more can be done by us as ordinary citizens.  Whether it’s that difficult conversation with the male head of your family, that monthly sacrifice for a niece, a cousin or a sister, or a commitment to demonstrating the benefits that will accrue to your family because of your own education as a woman, we can all play a bigger part, and achieve our own individual versions of “akili dada” right here at home.
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​SOUTHERN SISTER- SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2013

A friend was astonished recently when I told him that I had copied a passage from a novel into my notebook several years ago.  He couldn’t understand what would make a person do something so seemingly pointless! But the words I had read (and rewritten, and later reread) were so fascinating that I didn’t know any other way to make them a part of my reality.  A small part of the passage, coming out of a Penny Vincenzi novel read this way:

“ …suddenly, none of that mattered. She had done it, she had made it all on her own, she was that most elusive, sought after, fought over thing - a success.  Beyond anything she could have imagined.  She just could not, she would not, give that up.”
In summary it was the point at which a woman had, after some internal struggle, achieved a level of success that gave her great satisfaction as well as monetary reward.  It spoke of the addictive feeling that both money and power gave her and of the pleasure that came out of defiance and resilience.
Of course the idea of “making it on her own” is in many ways a myth.  No one really makes it without other people supporting, making opportunities available, understanding and endorsing them.  Everybody needs somebody, whether they recognise it or not.
And then of course there is that age old question of what success itself is.  For some, like the woman in Vincenzi’s novel, it is all about money and power and status.  Sometimes even having those things is not enough until society at large gives recognition in the form of a reward such as an award, a political appointment, a seat at the table.
For others, it is the gap between where they started and where they have come to that defines the fact that they are now successful.  Many stories of rags to riches hinge on the subject’s humble roots as a point of contrast with the final radiant destination.
What we often forget though, is that success is only a point or a number of points along the total journey of our lives.  Unless we are measuring a person’s success at the very end of their lives, the point before and the point after success are open to anything happenning.  To have achieved success is not a guarantee of being successful forever.  To quote Winston Churchill, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”
Some people measure their success by the number of people whose lives they have touched along the way. They measure their impact by the ways in which they have made things better for others.  In Albert Einstein’s words, “Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to be a man of value.”
In the final analysis, perhaps the one thing which tops the sweet smell of success is happiness.
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Southern sister - Sunday 29 September 2013

“What happens to a dream deferred?

      Does it dry up
      like a raisin in the sun?
      Or fester like a sore—
      And then run?
      Does it stink like rotten meat?
      Or crust and sugar over—
      like a syrupy sweet?
      Maybe it just sags
      like a heavy load.
      Or does it explode?”

These words were written by Langston Hughes, an American writer whose work became famous in the 1920s, in a piece entitled Harlem.
When I was younger my elder brother whom I worshipped, told me that where there is a will there are at least seven ways.  Because he was an engineering student at university, an di was an arts student in high school,  I simply assumed that there was some sort of incomprehensible scientific explanation for this statement; that someone had done some complex calculations and averaged things out and come up with this brilliant and very encouraging statement.  I took it to be absolute truth, and for many years went about guided by this principle.
Only when I was much older did I realize that he had popped that out randomly with absolutely no factual basis whatsoever; but it did get me thinking.  Because I believed it to be true, I always looked for multiple solutions to any problem I faced with the certain knowledge that at least seven could be identified.  It worked because I believed in it.
Similarly then, Zimbabweans now must be prepared to make whatever the results of the elections are, work for themselves.  If you dreamed a dream of prosperity, you should still chase that dream, irrespective of what the results of the elections are.
If you longed for another child or even another wife, you should surely go ahead and satisfy your longings regardless of who wins the elections.
If you planned to travel to a faraway land, to write poetry in the sunset, to play soccer with a star, or share supper with a sheik, you have no cause to derail your plans.
We read in proverbs 13:12 “ Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when dreams come true there is hope and joy.”
Because if we allow the results of an election to derail our dreams, we become prisoners of those results.  And we should not give ourselves up to be prisoners of anyone or anything; not now, and not ever.
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SOUTHERN EYE - 4 AUGUST 2013

At a dinner party this week, some friends and I were discussing some of the television shows that captivated us as children.  The men talked about Voltron and Six Million Dollar Man, while the women talked about Bionic Woman.  Later I thought about the singing, dancing and drama series Fame, set at the School of the Arts in the USA and how I would have done just about anything to be a part of that world.   As a teenager  the characters in that show seemed so talented, so interesting and yet somehow accessible, that they became the substance of my dreams and ambitions.  Oh the heartache of adolescence!
Today when my children and I talk about their career prospects I tell them that whatever they will be has not yet been invented.  They find this puzzling and cannot process that a career choice which doesn’t exist today may yet materialize as the world changes.
Concerned that girl children are not aiming high enough and doing my bit to expose them to positive female role models, I decided one day to introduce a little girl to a lady financial director.  I explained that the woman was in charge of all the money in the company and therefore very powerful and I suggested that perhaps one day if the little lady worked hard at her maths and science she too might have such a big and powerful job.  How wrong was I!  She firmly declared (in front of said FD) that she had no such ambition and was instead going to pursue a career as a dancer!  That left me despondent.
Not that I have anything against dancers per se.  After all, I too aspired to this career choice at some point (shhh don’t tell my mother!)  My anxiety is around the fact that girls should be more aware of a wider range of career choices available to them.  As a clever women once said, ”You can’t be what you can’t see,”  and until women in positions of leadership and authority start stepping forward for girls to see them, we will continue to shortchange the next generation by presenting a limited number of options to them.
A little girl today can dream of becoming an astronaut, a software developer, a neurologist, a biochemist, a professor of behavioural science, a water and sanitation engineer,  as well as a dancer or a financial director.  As children, many of us did not conceive that those options were available to us. When the little girl who disdained a career in finance grows a little older and begins to better understand the full implication of such a career choice, when she has been exposed to enough women financial directors and seen how they live, when she understands that the girls who are four or five years older than her are now dreaming of being financial directors, then maybe something in her will begin to open up to the possibility that she too might one day be counted among them.
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SOUTHERN SISTER - SUNDAY 25 AUGUST 2013