“I am still awaiting trial after five years behind bars for a crime I did not commit,” says Toke Okeowo*, a 25-year-old inmate at the female section of the Kirikiri Prison in Apapa, Lagos State, Nigeria. Her case typifies the injustice suffered by hundreds of poor women in Nigeria.
Kirikiri Prison is one of two female correctional facilities in the country. At the entrance of the prison, there is a notice stating the prison was carrying 2,000 people over its 1,700 capacity, an issue that has led to the spread of diseases and countless deaths. What is more alarming, a majority of the detainees, similar to Okeowo, have not been convicted by any court of law.
“My neighbor came over to my place and told me to hold her mobile phone while she went next door to pick up her child. Thirty minutes later, a group of men came knocking at my door looking for the neighbor who had apparently fled. They found the phone which had been stolen from the men along with a laptop and accused me of being an accomplice,” says Okeowo.
She was immediately detained and sent to the medium security wing of the prison where she has been waiting for a verdict for the past five years. Nigeria has the highest number of detainees awaiting trial in Africa.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/focus/2017/09/21/grime-comes-crime/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Grime That Comes With Crime</a>
Okwendi Solomon, an expert in Criminology and Penology, estimates that over 70% of prison inmates are on the awaiting-trial list in the country. The legality of these detainees is still an ongoing debate. Section 19 of the Prison Act of Nigeria defines a woman prisoner as “any person lawfully committed to custody”.
However, Dr Uju Agomoh, an expert in justice and prison reform and founder of Prisoners Rehabilitation and Welfare Action (PRAWA), believes the ambiguity in the law needs to be addressed.
“For a woman to be recognized as a prisoner in Nigeria, her confinement to prison must be lawful. This raises serious concerns as to the legal status of awaiting-trial women who are often charged by magistrates who have no jurisdiction to do so and are then remanded in prison custody by such magistrates pending their proper trial before a competent court,” says Agomoh.
<div id="attachment_33644" style="width: 259px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-33644" class=" wp-image-33644" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/UJU-AGOMOH-212x300.jpg" alt="" width="249" height="352" />Dr Uju Agomoh (Photo supplied by PRAWA)</div>
Furthermore, she believes that because women do not account for a majority within the criminal justice system of many African countries, most prisons have a proclivity to cater to the larger male prison population without sufficiently taking into account a gender-sensitive approach and therefore unable to adequately take care of the special needs of female prisoners.
Princess Ndema* experienced this insensitivity the hard way.
“I was arrested for trafficking drugs. At the time, I was six months pregnant so I ended up giving birth to my child in this prison. It was very bad conditions because the prison did not have adequate treatment or care. I fell ill immediately after that due to an infection I contracted during childbirth. If you do not have someone bringing you feminine hygiene products from the outside, you basically have to try and somehow survive,” says Ndema.
Most of the toiletries used by inmates at the Kirikiri Prison are provided by non-governmental and religious organizations &#8211; a problem for the female prisoners who might be nursing mothers or pregnant.
“We do not get any welfare from the government. If it was not for the local church who bring sanitary pads, soaps and sometimes food to us, the situation will be a lot worse than it is,” says Ndema.
She and her son have been at Kirikiri for seven years now. She claims although she was 16 at the time, the arresting officer said she was 21 so she could be tried as an adult. That trial never came.
“The number of female prisoners are few in comparison to the male population, however, due to the recent alarming growth as well as the unique nature of female prisoners, I think it is imperative for the criminal justice system in Nigeria to focus on the conditions and issues that can have a negative impact on their health,” says Dr Olayinka Lawal, Executive Director of PRAWA.
<a href="http://www.forbesafrica.com/life/2015/08/01/how-criminals-free-their-mind-behind-bars/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">How Criminals Free Their Mind Behind Bars</a>
The organization was established about 22 years ago as a non-profit due to the inhumane conditions in the prison system. For Lawal, improving conditions in the prison also means speeding up the legal process for awaiting-trial persons.
“The way this system should work is, somebody is arrested for a criminal offence, goes through trial, and is presumed innocent constitutionally until found guilty of the offence. But this does not happen because the criminal justice system is slow with the average detainee waiting between five to 17 years. Three years ago, we helped to release one of the longest detainees in the state who had spent over 17 years awaiting trial,” says Lawal.
The only light through the prison’s concrete labyrinth for those still awaiting trial is the presence of organizations like PRAWA. The organization puts prison reform at the top of their agenda through capacity research and institutional building as well as advocacy.
“The administration of Criminal Justice Act ACJA 2015 has outlined the framework to tackle the issue and we need to find prudent and efficient ways of implementing this. As I have always stated, there are other forms of sentencing like communal service instead of prison term so education is also key,” says Lawal.
The mandate to reform the prisons in Nigeria rests with the Nigerian Prison Service (NPS) but due to the peculiar challenges in prisons in the country, the process of rehabilitating prisoners and sending them back into society has been significantly hindered.
“Those awaiting trial under the eyes of the law are usually presumed to be innocent and there is no provision for them in the prison system because they are just passing by. As a result, the reformative program in the prison is intended for the convict,” says Lawal.
According to Dr Kemi DaSilva-Ibru, founder of Women At Risk International Foundation (WARIF), “When juxtaposed with other members of the society, prisoners suffer numerous health issues in prison including substance abuse, mental health and communicable diseases.”
Equally worrisome for mothers like Ndema, the responsibility of raising her son rests squarely on her shoulders until she is separated from him during incarceration. For her and many females facing an uncertain future, the challenges continue. The only way out is through government and other stakeholders coming together to provide and improve the prison system as well as healthcare and most importantly, ensuring the criminal justice system achieves its intended purpose by legally punishing or acquitting individuals in an expeditious manner.
*names changed to protect identity

The Uncertain Future Of Nigeria’s Female Prisoners

An art exhibition is a confluence of creative minds and the perfect opportunity to understand the current thinking of a country’s intelligentsia.
Lebohang Kganye and Nandipha Mntambo are two of 13 female artists – from Ethiopia to Egypt to Ghana, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa – we meet showcasing their work, at the historic Constitutional Hill in Johannesburg on May 10, for the exhibition, Being her(e): Meditations on African Femininities, examining what it means to be “a female body in contemporary Africa”.
<h2>Searching for mother</h2>
Lebohang Kganye
<div id="attachment_32579" style="width: 296px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32579" class=" wp-image-32579" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Lebohang_Kganye-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="286" height="429" />Lebohang Kganye (Photo supplied)</div>
“I am excited to be part of the exhibition, because it is not a show overseas, about Africa, but it is an exhibition in a historical space in Africa. I have no reservations about the future of women in arts across Africa, and this exhibition emphasizes that,” says South African photographer Kganye.
Her first piece of art, B(l)ack to Fairy Tales, in 2011, explored her memories of a fairy tale world by Walt Disney.
“I identified with fairy tale characters – the white skin, long hair, blue eyes, perfect figure&#8230; My black skin and location became an increasing disjuncture with the fantasies I believed in. Hence, I paint myself excessively black for B(l)ack to Fairy Tales”.
For her collection, Kganye uses photographs from her 2013 series, Ke Lefa Laka, dedicated to her mother.
<blockquote>“Her death sparked the need to trace my ancestral roots. I initially began navigating my history through geographic mapping, attempting to trace where my family originated and how we ended up in these different spaces that we all now call home. I visited the different locations where my family lived in South Africa and found old family photo albums.</blockquote>
“I began looking for pieces of my mother in the house. I found many photos and clothes which had always been there but which I had ignored over the years. There she was smiling and posing in these clothes. My re-connection with her became a visual manipulation of ‘her-our’ histories. I began inserting myself into her pictorial narrative by emulating these snaps.
“I would dress in the exact clothes that she was wearing in these 20-year-old photographs and mimic the same poses. This was my way of marrying the two memories; mine and hers. I later developed digital photomontages where I juxtaposed old photographs of my mother retrieved from the family archives with photographs of a ‘present version of her’ – she is me, I am her, and there remains in this commonality so much difference, and so much distance in space and time,” says Kganye.
In 2011, she completed an Advanced Photography course at the Market Photo Workshop in Newtown, Johannesburg, where she displays her self-portraits. She is now busy with a new collection of photographs, Reconstruction Of A Family.
<h2>The Cowhide Chick</h2>
Nandipha Mntambo
<div id="attachment_32580" style="width: 296px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32580" class="wp-image-32580" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/Nandipha-profile-683x1024.jpg" alt="" width="286" height="429" />Nandipha Mntambo (Photo supplied)</div>
It’s a gloomy day in Johannesburg when we meet with South African sculptor, photographer and videographer Nandipha Mntambo at her apartment-cum-studio in New Doornfontein but around her are bursts of color. Mntambo is surrounded by her paintings and sculptures. Art has always been in her blood.
Mntambo was born in Swaziland and grew up in South Africa. She graduated with a master’s degree in Fine Art from the University of Cape Town (UCT), in 2007. Her father was a bishop, so it was a nomadic childhood.
“We moved around the country because of my father’s job and at that time it was still under apartheid because of the neighborhood that we lived in there were certain schools that didn’t accept me so I ended up studying at a Jewish school, then a Catholic and a Methodist school, the different cultures and religion had an influence on how I deal with things,” she says.
Mntambo, 35, wanted to study forensics pathology but couldn’t deal with dead bodies.
“I wanted to be a scientist; the Stellenbosch University had a good department and I was even job-shadowing but then I thought seeing dead people every day wouldn’t necessarily be the best thing for me.
“Luckily, I had a portfolio from high school, I sent it to UCT and then they accepted me into their art program. At the time, I didn’t imagine I would be a full-time practising artist. I was just happy to create work and learn more about art history,” says Mntambo.
In her work, Mntambo focuses on the human body and the organic nature of identity, using natural materials and experimenting with sculptures moulded from cowhide. For this, she is known as the ‘cowhide chick’.
She uses her own body as the mould for these sculptures and does not intend to make statements about femininity.
<blockquote>“One of the challenges I’ve had was to have a language that would help me explain to somebody that because I am a black female within a particular context, the issues of lobola, women, cows and culture are there but it’s not what my work is about,” she says.</blockquote>
One of Mntambo’s favorite materials is the skin of the cow. Her art works explore the similarities and differences between animals and humans; men and women, and attraction and repulsion.
“I was really interested in mythology when I first started and the fact that throughout many civilizations there are stories of animals and humans and how they inter-relate.”
The job wasn’t always easy.
“I work with organic material that gets insects and had to deal with cow fat. Because at first I didn’t understand the material enough, it felt like a bit of self-punishment; dealing with flies and losing studio mates. There was also a time when finances were a problem and the work wasn’t selling,” says Mntambo.
“In South Africa, we have few female black artists and sculptures. It took a long time to be accepted in certain circles in terms of how people interpret my work, and how they view me. You’re not allowed to exist as just as an artist or sculpture, you exist as a black female artist, so there all these preconceived ideas that people either put on you or their interpretation of the work. There are also strange limitations that people put on you,” she says.

The Future Of African Women In Art

In the Africa I know, we sing and dance when we are happy, when we go to the battlefield, and in times of bereavement. We did it at the memorial service of 86-year-old South African female jazz trailblazer, Thandiwe ‘Thandi’ Klaasen on a warm January day. She died a week before, after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.
Could we have celebrated the colorful and illustrious career of Klaasen without the music and renowned Sophiatown style, the multiracial suburb she lived in until it was cleared away by apartheid?
Born in 1931 in Sophiatown, Klaasen and her contemporaries used music to fight the oppressive system and patriarchy. Tired of being an appendage to male bands, she formed a female vocal quartet called the Quad Sisters that shot to stardom with a hit song Carolina Wam, in 1952. They influenced the formation of younger female groups, including Miriam Makeba’s The Skylarks.
On this Wednesday afternoon at the memorial service at Germiston City Hall, east of Johannesburg, songs intertwined with messages of condolences from politicians, musicians and family. One outstanding tribute was the family band’s adaptation of Louis Armstrong’s hit, What A Wonderful World.
&nbsp;
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself Mam’ Thandi,
Was a beautiful soul, A great dancer
and entertainer, If you agree just clap
your hands, Say how did you do.
&nbsp;
This classic was followed by words of Lorraine Klaasen, the image of her mother.
“I was a good observer of my mom. When I grew up I wanted to be like my mother, I wanted to travel the world like my mom and make people happy with my music. And I am really living the promise I made to myself… Music made my mom very happy… She travelled with me as artists but she played that role of a mom…,” says Lorraine, a 2013 Juno Award winner for World Music Album of the Year in Canada.
“What I am going to miss about my mother is her big heart and courage to start something and see it to the end. She taught me to trust in God. She was hardly in hospital. She was a very strong woman and a disciplinarian,” adds her son Roger Phambane.
The snazzy great-grandma’s penchant for wine drew chuckles.
Klaasen’s spells of inebriation were rarely boring. A friend and protégé, Abigail Kubeka, told tales of cooking and empty bottles.
“After all, she was a mother, a housewife and everything. She loved cooking her mutton curry for her husband, Lucas. One day she didn’t realize a cloth fell into her pot. So, she dished out for her husband and Lucas was eating with a fork, but the fork couldn’t pick up the meat. He called her: ‘Thandi, what have you cooked? You said you wanted mutton curry, that’s mutton curry. Ja, mutton curry, but this is a dish cloth,’” says Kubeka to raucous laughter.
Klaasen, among other things, was a magician. She would make a wine disappear in a second, says Nandipha Ndlovu, a granddaughter who called her a role model. Ndlovu is a young doctor in Germiston.
All the speakers agreed on Klaasen’s stoicism and resilience, mentioning how she survived the horror of 1977 when someone – maybe a rival – threw acid in her face. She was in hospital for almost a year.
“That day the fire was set to put an end to her rising star, but they were wrong. That was the day she was truly born. Everyone has got their turning point in their lives. We can rather choose to pursue it, chase your dream or you can turn back, or you can fail. But she didn’t choose to fail,” says Ndlovu.
She would tell people ‘they can burn my face, but they can’t burn my voice,’ says Khubeka.
She also used to joke that she never had one wrinkle in her face. Clearly she never lost the love and respect of her family, nor her sense of humor.

They Can Burn My Face, But They Can’t Burn  My Voice

Joyce Banda is wearing a cheerful fuchsia-pink chitenge (African dress), but looks tired.
We meet her in a Johannesburg hotel, where she has been staying on the return leg of her six-week trip – the longest she has been away from Africa – to the United States (US).
“The last few weeks have been hectic,” says Banda, Malawi’s former president and Africa’s second female head of state.
In the US, she had been rubbing shoulders with Hillary Clinton and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, garnering support for the Joyce Banda Foundation, which she has been running on behalf of the women and children of Malawi for the last 16 years. In Johannesburg, she also met with Graça Machel, wife of the late Nelson Mandela, to discuss a maternal and child health program.
Back home, it was an equally hectic few months. In a year Malawi is celebrating 50 years of independence, the international press scrutinized it over a high-level graft scandal and chaotic elections.
Banda left Malawi a month after her country’s closely-contested – and controversial – May elections, which saw her and her People’s Party lose to Peter Mutharika of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Banda was president of the tiny aid-dependent southern African country – among the world’s poorest – for a brief two years, following the death in office of her predecessor Bingu wa Mutharika, the brother of the new president.
“I came into office at a very difficult time. The economy had almost collapsed, but in 24 months, I was able to turn [it] around,” says Banda.
Banda says Malawi’s economy grew from 1.8% in 2012 to 6.2% in 2014. She started well, winning accolades from the West for her economic reform plan and austerity measures, including the IMF-backed devaluation of the kwacha.
“What gives me pride is I left Malawi a better place than when I found it. When I came… we didn’t have fuel for a day, companies were scaling down… I had to work very quickly… By the time I was leaving statehouse, we had a harvest of 3.9 million metric tons. Companies were operating at 85%. We had a forex cover of three-and-a-half months [from a week]… We had fuel for 15 days at any given time… The one thing I wasn’t aware of when I came into office is there was so much corruption, and that corruption affects the gains you make.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-29553 alignleft" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-001-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-001-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-001-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-001-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-001.jpg 1024w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Banda claims she started the fight against corruption, revamping Malawi’s financial management system, which she says led to 68 arrests and 30 frozen accounts.
The corruption scandal, or Cashgate, saw senior government officials in Banda’s administration charged with misallocating funds. According to Baker Tilly, the British auditors hired by Banda with financial support from the British government, the state was defrauded of about $32 million, almost 1% of Malawi’s annual GDP, between April and September 2013.
But Banda says the financial system was abused by previous governments, dating back to 2001. She knew bringing it to light was not going to be easy.
“I was warned by colleagues across the continent it’s not easy to fight corruption… because you are fighting very powerful people who are benefitting from that kind of money, and if you are not careful, you will get smeared on, be fought through and through, dragged to the ground…,” says Banda.
“I decided to go back to 2010 and 2011, as I saw the benefit of us finding the truth, [as] that is the only way to move forward. The audit reports together with the K6 billion ($15 million) stolen while I was in office, and the K92 billion ($232 million) [from her predecessor’s time] are before parliament now. The good news is that the current president has also decided to go ahead with the fight against corruption,” says Banda. The May elections brought more grief.
In the aftermath of the polls, which she alleged were rigged, there was a point when she says she had to take responsibility, call for a recount, step aside from contesting, and concede defeat.
“People have asked me, why did you not contest, why did you concede, when the Electoral Commission had also announced there was rigging? I felt it was important for me to allow peace to prevail. I have always said Malawians come first, this was an opportunity for me to demonstrate that. Malawians must have a leader of their choice, but Malawians should also not shed blood. There is life after statehouse and so much more I can do. So I chose to concede, and have no regrets.”
The buzz in Malawi now is what’s next for Banda? Will she return to politics or philanthropy?
Banda says she will continue championing women’s rights not just in Malawi but across Africa, and since her arrival in Malawi, has been involved with projects through her foundation.
Questions abound about her political future.
“There is a sense of deja vu, with the forex situation worsening by the day, and the kwacha weakening against the dollar and other major trading currencies, many fear that a repeat of fuel shortages that characterized the DPP government may come again. That coupled with the failure to meet some campaign promises may push Joyce Banda’s popularity up,” says Mabvuto Banda, a Malawi-based journalist.
There has also been speculation she might be charged for Cashgate.
“Interestingly, the Attorney General Kalekeni Kaphale [in August] lauded Joyce Banda for laying the foundation for the fight against Cashgate but he was quick to say more still needs to be done to effect more arrests. He also warned there will be no sacred cows, a statement that may have fueled speculation JB will not be left out,” says the reporter.
“Joyce Banda has a lot of powerful friends outside Malawi but it’s very difficult for me to see how she could be indicted when clearly many would interpret the indictment as trying to victimize her.”
“When you are innocent, when you are fighting for the people, prosecution does not matter,” Banda had said in Johannesburg, days before her return home.
“If I write a book about my life, it will be volumes and volumes. I want to write one book that [tells] any African woman reading it that [you] can be at the lowest in [your] life and bounce back. In my life, I have been down four times. Every woman who reads my book will know that when you fall, you get up, and run again.”

FWA-2014-Oct-Nov-016-017-Joyce-Banda-002

‘Malawians Should  Not Shed Blood’

Esther Mbabazi was eight when her father died in a plane crash in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This could have deterred her childhood dream of being a pilot. It didn’t and Mbabazi found comfort in the skies.
“We don’t stop driving because loved ones die in car crashes, why stop now? However it just made me realize the value of lives I have on board, so safety is definitely a big deal to me as a pilot.”
Safety is important in most passengers’ minds when turbulence hits. Usually there is a reassuring announcement made by a mature male. Many passengers are surprised when they hear a female voice saying:  “Ladies and gentlemen this is your captain speaking. We are experiencing a bit of turbulence on our descent. Just sit back we’ll be landing shortly.”
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2646" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/DSC_0069-300x199.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="199" />
In 2013, Mbabazi became Rwanda’s first female commercial pilot. It was a dream that began at the age of four where she would see planes take off from Bujumbura airport, close to her home in Burundi. At the age of seven, she took her first flight on a family trip to the Unites States (US). It was love at first flight.
“I didn’t get to go into the cockpit but I knew this is where I belonged, back then they’d give kids back packs and I was just an excited child on the Virgin Atlantic.”
After high school, Mbabazi started training at Soroti Flight School, also known as East Africa Civil Aviation Academy, in Uganda where only two women made it through. She secured a scholarship from RwandAir to continue her commercial license training in the US.
“At Flight Safety Academy in the US, the number [of female students] was bigger. There were up to 20 female students from all over the world including the first female Saudi Arabian pilot, Hanadi Hindi among others from Asia, Europe and South America. There were about 10 female instructors and the chief pilot, Nancy Ritter, was a female too. But as many as we were we didn’t even make up 5 percent of the academy.”
Two and a half years later, Mbabazi made it.
“Making history was not my goal, achieving my goals is what I delight in, like I said, do what you love and people may appreciate it. After getting my commercial license I didn’t celebrate, I was looking forward to the next cockpit I’ll get into. This, for me, is my way of celebrating, flying!”
Mbabazi believes she is in the minority because of the belief that flying is a man’s job. She is delighted that she has paved the way for many dreamers in proving the critics wrong.
“I like to view my challenges as the reasons to celebrate having reached my goal. As a woman in a male dominated field, no doubt, you have to prove yourself, but hard work always pays off.”
Mbabazi is among many women in Rwanda who are the backbone of the country. Rwanda is going through great lengths to rebuild itself from the 1994 genocide, which left a dominant female population of an estimated 51%.
Laws have been set in place to provide more gender equality in the country. Women are allowed to own land and take more initiative in business and in politics. Rwanda has the highest number of women in parliament in the world and was the first country to have more than 50 female members of parliament.
And now there is a woman in the air.

Love At First Flight

You are a hard-hitting businesswoman or high-ranking female executive who has managed to avoid falling victim to poverty, res-trictive cultural attitudes, unfriendly workplace policies and biased education steering that generally stop most women on the second or third rung of the proverbial ladder of success.
Give yourself a pat on the back. Have some cake – eat it too
You certainly deserve it. It is no small feat in a world where women still make up roughly two-thirds of the population living below the poverty line. A world where yawning gender employment and wage gaps continue to prevail and top leadership and management roles are still held by men, even in typically women-dominated fields.
But the fact of the matter is, no matter what kind of corner-office view you have earned, you are still marooned in the big, bad sea of male majority. And you are still battling gender-based double-blinds.
A 2012 study commissioned by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) polled 60 Fortune 500 companies and found that executive committees were made up of just 14% women. In its 2012 census, the Business Women’s Association of South Africa found that the number of women in the working world has increased, but the number of women in senior leadership positions has decreased.
At the end of 2012, there were a measly 12 women CEOs/managing directors and 18 women chairpersons in the South Africa. Furthermore, women comprised only 21.4% of executive managerial positions and 17.1% of director roles in the country, the continent’s supposed economic pioneer. Depressing, yes? Even more shocking is that the same WSJ report discovered that only 18% of the women surveyed harbor CEO aspirations. It found that women were happy to adopt support roles fairly early in their careers and often exited the employment superhighway to fulfill family obligations. Often this happened before they had reached a point at which they could on-ramp again with ease, thus door-stopping their job prospects once and for all. In short, women are dreaming small and aiming low.
It is tempting to leave the business of change to someone else, perhaps understaffed, underfunded agents of women’s economic empowerment. But the fact of the matter is that the responsibility of elevating women into senior positions also lies with those already in senior leadership positions.
There is no time to sit around, waiting to see if a mass overhaul in company philosophy or government policy could lead to more widespread gender diversity in top management roles. Rather, the women who have fought tooth and nail to rise up through the ranks need to help revolutionize individual mindsets.
And how? Through mentorship.
The practice of sharing wisdom and inviting entrants into the workplace into personal networks has been shown to be instrumental in women’s career advancement. Such behavior instills confidence in and offers guidance to the intelligent, credible and bright women further downstream. Dr. Anita Bosch, the leader of the Women in the Workplace research pod at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa, explains: “Countless businesswomen battle with psychological hang-ups that can stymie their success. Mentorship helps budding professionals realize their value and chisel out their workplace identity, a point that’s especially important to females.”
Studies have also proven that mentorship allows the up-and-coming to make sense of business culture and set out a strategic career direction.
Take the case of Viola Manuel and her mentee, Simone Daniels. Manuel is the executive director of the Cape Chamber of Commerce, the former head of the Cape IT Initiative, an entrepreneur and founder of her own company, Afrivate. Like so many women before her, Manuel has had to claw her way up the ladder of success without a helping hand reaching down from a higher rung.
“When I was starting my career there were very few role models that were approachable and within reach, and I know that if I’d had someone to lean on I would have been even more successful, had an even more accelerated understating of my industry,” she explains.
It has prompted Manuel to partner with the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation as a mentor and take on a mentee in her personal capacity.
Simone Daniels was a final-year chemical engineering student at the University of Cape Town when she met Manuel. At the time, she was prepared to flush four painstaking years of organic chemistry, calculus and general physics down the drain even before she had experienced her first day of work.
“I was done. Dead set on giving it up,” she says emphatically.
After only a few mentorship sessions with Manuel, however, Daniels was not only prepared to continue her coursework, but was motivated to envision herself in a leadership position further down the road.
“She helped me work through what I wanted to do. From talking to her and bouncing ideas off of her, I realized that if I abandoned the degree, I’d likely never be able to go back to engineering, which would be heartbreaking. Now I think my end goal would be to be less of a process engineer and more of a manager,” Daniels explains.
Confident, passionate and not the least bit fazed by the prospect of having to prove herself in a male-dominated industry, Daniels may yet be jaded by the working world, but she is also pointedly aware of a trajectory.
It is a refreshing example of foresight. Although mentorship is not a technical skill, it is a perfect demonstration of the how it facilitates prof-essional and personal development.
Similarly, a relationship between a woman mentor and her mentee can be especially useful for tackling the conversation around how women manage time.
“There are different expectations for women, especially if you want to have a family. Learning how to address that and helping prepare people around you for that is key,” says Manuel.
And she would know. Manuel had three miscarriages before realizing that she needed to quit her job if she wanted to keep her baby. It is an int-ensely personal experience and her willingness to share it with others in similar situations is what makes her such an excellent mentor.
“Mentorship is about forming a connection and building up a relationship of support and trust. It’s about making yourself approachable, so mentees aren’t scared to ask questions,” Manuel explains.
At the end of the day, though, mentorship is a two-way street. Rebecca Pillay, the mentor manager at the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation, points out that mentors also benefit. “They get to leave a legacy behind, stay relevant and connected with a younger generation, and even easily expand their networks.”
Pillay also stresses that mentorship does not have to be viewed as an all-consuming task.
“There are no formal rules of engagement, but by setting out a contract during your first interaction, you can very clearly lay out the frequency of meetings, address the way you want to communicate with mentees and show commitment on the part of both parties,” she says.
This means that businesswomen who already feel like they have barely enough time to find two matching socks in the morning do not need to feel overburdened by the idea of mentorship.
Pillay recommends only eight- to 10-hour-long meetings throughout the year, which adds up to a single workday.
During that time, she explains, it is important to set out high-value goals, remain authentic by meeting the mentee on their level, and avoid imposing your own expectations on the person you are guiding.
The end goal is to help women in business remove obstacles, give them the confidence to break through glass ceilings and provide them with the courage to detach themselves from sticky floors.
And the greater benefit, aside from the personal gains for both mentor and mentee?
For starters, the World Economic Forum points out that higher levels of growth domestic product per capita when gender equality in the workplace is better realized. Secondly, as Manuel so aptly explains, women put their income back into the economy in a more valuable way than men. Women are more likely to save or, if they have children, invest in them. And a healthier economy often means healthier salaries.
Global investment bank Goldman Sachs has even concluded that by closing the employment gender gap in the Brics nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and next-11 countries (three of which are African), per capita incomes could be pushed 14% higher than current projections by 2020 and 20% higher by 2030.
Of course, it goes without saying that the idea of affecting such macro-level change with a grassroots mentorship movement is a lofty aspiration. But then again, that’s exactly what women need to be doing: dreaming bigger and aiming higher. And as Viola sums up, “Whether we acknowledge it or not, it’s within the grasp of every woman in business to do something to elevate other women. That’s got to be our thinking. We have to find a way to contribute.”
So, ask yourself, are you doing your bit?

Mentorship: The missing link

They call it the sport of kings, but one young lady begs to differ. At 25 years old, Uneku Atawodi has played professional polo in more than 14 countries. She has represented her country at the Federation of International Polo, which makes her the first black, female, professional polo player to compete at international level.
The Nigerian youth began her journey into professional polo at the age of 16. In Kaduna, in north-central Nigeria, where she grew up, polo was almost a weekly ritual in her family. After having played casually for two years, she was ready to make a career of it. Her parents tried to talk her out of it and stopped paying for the upkeep of her horses. Atawodi enrolled for a qualification in Equestrian Sports Science at the University of Brighton, in England. It was then that she began to work at horse stables to gain more experience and received a stage 4 riding accreditation from the British Horse Society.
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“I was quite fascinated by the sport from the first time I watched it and had always wanted to play polo, but my uncles would discourage me by saying: ‘No, you’re a girl, you should try other sports instead’ or ‘A woman’s place, is not on a horse, you won’t get married’. I had also tried out hunting, in England, but there was something about the horses. I was in love and fascinated with them right from the onset. I was passionate about polo,” says Atawodi.
Her passion kept her undeterred; each game gave her a bigger thrill, but Atawodi soon realized that she needed to finance her expensive passion. The costs of playing polo are high: a thoroughbred or thoroughbred cross Argentinian horse ranges from $15,000 to $20,000 or more, and they need to be well looked after and trained if they are to excel. Players’ kits are also pricey, polo riding boots range from $600 to $800 a pair.
More determined than ever, she was ready to swing the mallet for money.
“I believe that if you truly want something, regardless of how wealthy your family might be, it is your responsibility to work for your dream, not expect others to fund your plans. I think my parents’ stern decision bred a strong will in me. It encouraged a strong work ethic and a vibrant belief that every aim is eventually achievable if you work hard for it.”
With this in mind, Atawodi knew it was time to make a change. She returned to Nigeria and began to work at the Federal Capital Territory Administration, in Abuja, as a special duties officer. At that time, she also pursued a business venture in the hospitality sector.
Her love of polo and bid to change perceptions of it being an elitist sport, led Atawodi to establish an NGO called Ride to Shine. It is here, at this non-profit organization in Abuja, that a few orphans are raised to be future polo stars.
“I wanted to open these doors for the children because through my polo handicap, I’ve been able to see the world. This is what I love to do and what better way to share with the children than to give them this gift?”
She is also building a resort in Abuja, the capital city, that will facilitate polo tournaments for children. All proceeds will go to the Ride to Shine trust fund.
“I want them to be ambassadors for Nigeria through polo,” she says.
With a handicap of zero, Atawodi had bigger plans.
“Owning my own team is what I ultimately wanted,’’ she says.
This became a reality as she owns 17 horses and runs a team called Bamboo.
“[It] is a rather new team, we have played in a few Nigerian tournaments and we are now aiming to have the team play around the world.”
One of the tournaments the team has participated in is Polo For A Cause, Atlanta. This event is hosted in partnership with equestrian brand, La Martina, to raise money for orphans in Africa. The tournament will continue to be hosted in various states across the United States to raise awareness and benefit charities.
The team recently played at the Miami beach tournament, where she was a role model.
“It was amazing to have so many little girls inspired by my participation. As the only girl in the tournament, it was a lot of fun,” she says.
Atawodi represented Nigeria in her role as a ‘global shaper’ at this year’s World Economic Forum. She is also writing a book about polo; it will see her traveling the world and learning about the history of polo in many countries.
With more points to score both on and off the polo field, Atawodi is keeping her eyes squarely on the ball.

Tag: Female

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