Barriers there to be broken – Rising female media star
ALEXANDRA – Award winner opens up to young qualified but trapped women.
Women were urged to liberate themselves by breaking barriers which impede their career development and personal contentment.
“They should stop saying ‘I want to but I am going to’ by using their professional qualifications and careers to attain their aspirations in life,” said Boitumelo Mmakou, founder of newly formed empowerment initiative, Women Diaries. It targets young women for empowerment through dialogue, information sharing and mentoring provided by role models who encourage them to live their dreams and aspirations.
Mmakou said this from a background where 51 per cent of the population with 58 per cent of them earning most of the degrees, only 44 per cent are in the formal workplace, 28 per cent in professional positions with only 10 per cent on the executive level.
From Alexandra, 29-year-old Mmakou said the barriers stacked against women are worse for those from disadvantaged backgrounds whose plight, regardless of qualifications and competence, are further undermined by a tag of shame and pity used to define them.
She has lived this experience, partly conquered it and is partnering with others on a journey to uplift others from this quagmire by encouraging them to take the challenge head on. “It’s our way of giving back to those we grew up with and know their potential but are trapped and immobilised by the tag which forces them to seek affirmation in their professional pursuits despite the qualifications and acumen.”
She was inspired to help others by awards she received in her young life as a content producer for Yfm Radio, a position she said empowered and allowed her to excel as a leader and trailblazer. “It earned me one of the 2018 Young Independent top 100 achievers’ awards for innovation and recently, the Top African Most Influential Woman Award for business in the media category.”
She is also one of the Standard Bank’s 2018 Rising Star in the media and advertising category having also been nominated in the Outstanding Creatives at the 2018/19 Vita Basadi awards. These inspired her to form her own company Mashadi Media which does press and public relations for dancers and is the vehicle for the empowerment initiative.
The event is the first of her annual empowerment sessions and started with young Alex women in keeping with the adage, charity begins at home. “The few of us who are privileged ought to lift them up into a critical mass which, together with us, will shake and change the imbalance in the corporate set up and workplace and social life in general.
“We deserve, have worked for and are qualified to effect change that will improve the status of women.”
Other professionals on hand inspired the 50 participants with free advice they can’t afford elsewhere, to enable them to kick-start their upward mobility in their chosen career paths. The experts gave them tips on human resources, grooming, financial management, physical fitness training and spiritual empowerment. “They need to understand the role physical and mental fitness, caring for oneself and financial literacy play in career fulfilment and return home to be better managers of their own lives.”
Related Article:
