The First Lady of South Africa, Tobeka Madiba Zuma joined businesswomen at the 2016 Inaugural Eskom Women’s Conference at Eskom Academy of Learning in Midrand.
Zuma was representing the Tobeka Madiba Zuma Foundation which creates awareness about the prevention, treatment and care of non-communicable diseases.The conference, a three-day event, was aimed towards providing skills for women all over South Africa, and Zuma delivered a keynote speech on the theme ‘My life, my choices, my power’.
She said, “The theme My life, my choices, my power is a grand finale to Women’s Month. The gathering at this conference recognises the very fact that the majority of women in our country still face enormous challenges ranging from economic transformation, access to resources, social transformation, and equitable access to health and basic infrastructure.”
Zuma encouraged women to overcome the lingering remnants of oppression, take the initiative and be in charge of their lives. “We need to level the playing field among ourselves as well, reach out to one another, particularly to the poorest among us and improve our livelihood. We need to ensure that women are at the centre of every development agenda and that our national policies are explicitly biased towards addressing imbalances of the past,” she urged.
Also in attendance was Venete Klein, member of the Eskom board; Lulama Nare, the commissioner for Gender Equality, as well as Eskom’s human resource group executive Elsie Pule.
