 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. ===== SOUTHERN SISTER- SUNDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2013
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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. ===== 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. ===== 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. ===== SOUTHERN SISTER - SUNDAY 25 AUGUST 2013 It’s likely that we all know of a woman we admire greatly, a woman who embodies everything we imagine one would want in a daughter in law, or a sister in law, a woman who has the interests of her husband at the front and centre of her life, but in spite of all this, is thought to be completely inadequate by her mother-in-laws. Do you know a woman like this?
Wicked mother-in-law stories abound; and are probably only overtaken in frequency and intensity by wicked daughter-in-law stories. To be fair on the elder party though, I don’t hear them complain about the women their sons married as often as I hear complaints about mothers in law drama. Amazingly this is one struggle that transcends race, culture, age and class and causes misery and bickering for families the world over. So that gets me wondering what it is about a grown man that makes his mother and his wife both claiming him as their territory, fail to come to a workable power sharing agreement. Most of us are sharing from before born. We lie in a womb that a sibling has occupied before us, we suckle at the same breast, we share meals and toys and wear one another’s hand me down garments. We share our parents’ attention and our teachers’ instruction, and the affection of our pets is spread right across the whole family. But none of this really bothers us. By the time we set forth into adulthood, we are well accustomed to the notion of shared rights and shared responsibility and we enter into marriage with an understanding that the resources we share may well be spread beyond the wall of our tiny nuclear family to include other members of the clan on both sides of the bridal table. All of this works fairly smoothly until the first clash of the mother in law with a new bride. Sometimes where the power base is slightly skewed an older sister in law takes over the combatant role of the mom in law. I always wonder what it must feel like to be a man and watch the two most important women in your life bicker over you. It must be a powerfully affirming thing; because surely if you ever doubted that you are loved and wanted and precious, you would know it when someone is prepared to curse another for the pleasure of being the one closest to you. The crazy thing about this ridiculous power struggle is that we all want the same things – for the same person! Surely every mother’s desires for her son is that he should be happy, successful, live a worry-free, peaceful life with his family. And surely every wife desires, good mental and physical health, peace and prosperity for her husband? Where then do things go wrong and why? Some believe the conflicts arise out of the desire to control all of the good things I have mentioned above, but I know that everything we believe about true love refutes this argument. Control and love do not seem to be natural bedmates to me. If a man I love (husband or son) is fully functional in his mental faculties, then there really is no reason for me to control him. Right?
Friday night in Katavi, Uganda must have been an eerie place that year. I wonder whether there was a sense, as the sun went down of the drama that would unfold. The unspeakable act of village justice which then took place when 31 year old community leader Madirisha had his head and genitals chopped off and then cooked after claims of adultery boggles the mind.
I don’t want to labour the adultery issue. I don’t even want to speculate about the gender aspect, and what might have happened if this man had been a women. I don’t want to investigate the surprise that we all must feel considering this is Africa, the victim was a man, and the issue was adultery. Go ahead and admit that it crossed your mind that this must be an over-reaction considering these three things. After all men committing adultery in Africa hardly makes news. But like I said, I don’t want to go there. The place I want to linger is over the issue of leadership. The fact that this man was a community leader ( other sources say a politician). I want to believe that this position made him more vulnerable to criticism, judgement and ultimately to the harrowing ordeal that cost him his life. Let’s hope it happened fast. I wonder if he even had a sense of what was going on or why when the five people (I am presuming them to be men) barged into his room, wielding machetes....Were they shouting? Did they call him names? Were they sure it was even him lying there? Was his wife in the room? What was her role in the drama? What about the one (or ones?) he committed adultery with? Was she gorgeous? Was she young? So many questions.... But there is no question more piercing to me than the one I ask in the headline. In the face unsympathetic criticism, ruthless judgement and thorough condemnation, who would want to be a leader? Do we only want to lead when the voices of the people we lead are kind and complimentary, when their words are coated in honey and their opinions of us are high? Leaders often want affirmation, and sometimes end up surrounded only by those who agree with them. But real leadership requires more from us. It requires that we walk our talk, that we live out the kind of values and ways of living that we claim to espouse. It requires sacrifice of personal comfort and pleasure sometimes just for the purpose of being a decent role model. Sometimes it even requires that we give up something gorgeous and exciting, something that makes our hearts sing and blood hot...something....Yeah. Its tough. Who’d want to be a leader?
This month our sisters south of the Limpopo are celebrating women's month. They honor the outstanding women in their country and their communities who enrich the lives of others, and whose efforts inspire and advance the nation, whether in business, politics, arts, society or science. As a community of women in the Southern African region we celebrate with them, recognizing that in our communities too, women are often the glue that holds society together.
Think about the women in your life today; And about the women who have played a role in your life in the past. What would your life have been without them all? Where might your path have led? In my own life i could start with my mother, a woman of incredible energy and accomplishments; my sister, the family's poster girl for academic excellence, my grandmother who was so creative and thrifty that I think given the chance she really would have turned a sow’s ear into a silk purse! There were many other women who inspired me: my glamorous aunt whose stylish presentation was a joy to behold, another aunt who lived with us for many years and cared for us like her own. And who could forget the grade seven teacher who had the courage to declare to a class of giggling teenagers "sex is a pleasure!" and the sixth form English teacher who gave me my first and last A plus and helped me fall in love with language. My first boss in the advertising business got promoted and said to me, “On Monday I am moving upstairs and I want you to move into my office and do my job. Don’t ask anybody for permission and don’t wait for authorization. Just do it.” I did. Thanks to her encouragement that’s how I landed my first managerial job. Since then I’ve had some powerful women to look up to in my church, at work and socially. I am particularly impressed by the courage of women who dismiss convention, who blaze a trail in unchartered spaces, and remain authentic. I aspire to that level of self assurance. So what about the amazing women in your life? I know there are some because most women are amazing! Do you have a mother whose resilience and determination take your breath away? Or a sister so wise that you don’t make a move without her endorsement and advise? Do you have a daughter whose beauty makes an orchid seem inconsequential? Or one of those incredible wives who is a lifelong testament to the saying ‘Love conquers all’? Perhaps somewhere in your past there is a lady teacher who made physics make sense, or a nurse whose kindness opened a rusty door in your heart. Perhaps a conversation with a woman in a supermarket aisle has inspired the profession you are in today? Or maybe watching a neighbourhood matron reach out to others changed your ideas about contribution and legacy? ===== Southern sister Sunday 8/18/2013 |
AuthorI write to lend you my courage, to help you find the words for the things you feel, but are not yet ready to say. I write to tell the stories of our time, and to edify those whose stories I tell and their audiences. Archives
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