Ignore Elize Strydom at your peril. The chief negotiator for the Chamber of Mines may have a calm, affable and measured manner about her, but her warning to society could not be filled with more thunder and fire.
“We have five years to get things right in South Africa or we will have an Arab Spring on our hands. We have tremendous inequality that makes for a ticking time bomb in this country,” says Strydom, the labor relations expert.
She speaks to FORBES WOMAN AFRICA just days after the country’s longest-ever strike, affecting the platinum sector, finally ended (see opposite page). In the same week, the gold mines that traditionally use centralized bargaining (which Strydom leads for industry) had to turn to the labor courts to uphold an interim order preventing trade union Amcu (Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union) from calling a protected strike.
Amcu is the dominant union in the platinum sector but has only about 19% of the total members in gold. Their hardline presence is nevertheless shifting the dynamics of labor relations across the board. Strydom says Amcu represents “a whole different animal” at the negotiation table. They are the elephant in the room. As Strydom points out: “As unskilled labor goes, miners are relatively well paid, yet in the case of the strike in the platinum sector, miners were prepared to sacrifice everything and go without pay for five months. It means we are talking about issues that are much more than just about wages and money.”
It speaks volumes and Strydom puts the watershed moment for labor, government, business and society as a whole, at the Marikana massacre in August two years ago. Forty four people, mostly miners, were killed. The ripple effect from that dark week in the winter of 2012 changed the country and labor relations irrevocably. It has forced government, industry and labor to respond differently. Strydom is up for the challenge – she has to be. In her favor is her track record of breaking molds and surprising everyone by treading where she’s not expected to be. She joined the Chamber in 1999 and became the first woman to lead wage negotiations for the organization, first for the coal sector in 2001 and then for gold in 2005.
“Bless the coal sector. They trusted me in 2001, even though they were quite skeptical a woman could lead the negotiations. But by the time I was moving to gold, they were sad that they were losing me,” she says from her corner office in the Chamber of Mines Building in downtown Johannesburg.
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She comes armed with a master’s and doctorate in income law, company law and labor law, but Strydom is known to also don a hard hat and make unexpected visits to mines, choosing to descend three kilometers underground to understand conditions  mineworkers face every day.
“I’m not an ivory tower person,” she says. She has also been called a capitalist with a socialist heart. She’ll accept the label because she says it’s what makes her fully engaged with an agenda that is not just about pitting two sides together over money. The bigger agenda of socio-economic upliftment and a sustainable and transformed mining sector is what she knows is the bigger prize.
Right now that means focusing on implementing the Framework Agreement for a Sustainable Mining Industry. It’s a government-driven initiative and a document adopted a year ago. It compels organized labor, business and government to meet new targets and address the legacy issues that still cast long shadows over a sector that still props up the economy and gives employment to around 500,000 people.
It’s a framework agreement that is itself framed by multiple inherited pressures. The biggest of which for Strydom, who was at one time a university lecturer, is a failed education system that’s perpetuated a low skills base and a culture of paternalism, that’s pernicious and dominant on South Africa’s mines.
“To me, our biggest failure is that we have lost 20 years of education and now have a lost generation that has not had proper schooling,” says Strydom.
It means her work is never over, not even when she is finally able to take a week’s break in the bush.
But when the break’s over, she’ll be building relationships with new players in the negotiations arena, shoring up old allegiances. She may also be called on to work on more everyday challenges, like developing a buddy system for female miners, overseeing designs for two-piece overalls for women miners or weighing in on how many centimeters a spear can be, before it’s classified a dangerous weapon and banned from a mine.
“It is a challenge, but it’s also an opportunity. It can be exhausting and depressing but I remain fiercely loyal to the mining industry,” she says.
And Strydom isn’t known to flap or spread crises too far out from her. It’s not her style. She says: “I know the essence of me, who I am, and that’s how I can keep my balance, even in mining, which make no mistake, is a tough, tough world.”

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Fiercely Loyal  In A Man’s World

It’s not uncommon for flight stewardesses to attract the occasional – and often derisive – comment that they are nothing but ‘trolley dollies’ or ‘waitresses in the sky’. Having been an airhostess for over three decades, Neil Haasbroek should know.
But for Haasbroek and many others of her generation, these remarks didn’t matter. What did was that it was a profession they adored, and one that came with its own sense of pride, dignity and discipline.
Described as “the angel in the blue dress” during a tea party in her honor in Johannesburg, South Africa, Haasbroek, now 80 and settled in the city, is one of the longest-serving airhostesses of one of Africa’s oldest airlines – South African Airways (SAA).
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She began her career in 1957, when SAA was known as SAL (Suid-Afrikaanse Lugdiens) and the country was ruled by the apartheid government. The airline wore a different look then: the tail of its body was orange and it sported a leaping navy blue springbok.
She had joined at a time when being an airhostess was seen as a short-term career option for women before entering their next phase of life – marriage.
But not for Haasbroek. She broke stereotypes and ended up working with SAA for 36 years.
“I had never thought that I would become an airhostess because I thought that I was too short at the time, and not as beautiful as I imagined an airhostess should be,” says Haasbroek.
It was only after she saw a newspaper advertisement that she thought it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Little did she know then she would spend almost half her life in the skies.
Haasbroek talks of how she moved up the ranks after a two-and-half year stint as a domestic flight attendant to later serve on international routes.
“I remember for the first six months, we only traveled to Australia, those were long flights – 23 hours,” she laughs.
“Thereafter, the world was my oyster. I spent 11 years traveling overseas.”
She then became a check-flight hostess, tasked with inspecting the conduct of the crew. Her most favorite role was as instructor and chief airhostess of the airline.
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“It was very exciting to get a group of girls that I had to train and be like a mother to them, and solve their problems,” says Haasbroek. Part of her job was to make sure the crew looked the part.
“Before every flight, I had to check their hair, make-up, nails and weight. They had to be well-groomed at all times. It was a wonderful career. I loved interacting with people, every flight for me was special and I could leave all my worries at home.” While many of her colleagues got married and had children, Haasbroek was married to her work, and every year, as new aspirants joined the airline, she treated them like her own children.
“I always say one of my greatest regrets was not having children of my own, but the hostesses became my daughters,” she says.

‘Angel In The Blue Dress’

In 1934, Helen Richey was the first female to pilot a commercial airline in the United States. A little less than 80 years later, in South Africa, three female pilots embarked on the first long-range flight with an all-female flight deck crew for South African Airways (SAA).
“I’ve been a captain on the long range for seven years and I’ve never had two ladies on the flight deck with me. These things happened by accident, it was a coincidence,” says Captain Jane Trembath, who flew with Senior First Officers Taryn Hochstrasser and Jocindy Mars.
It’s also about the numbers – there are far more male than female pilots, hence the likelihood of having a male co-pilot is greater. Of the 130,000 airline pilots worldwide, 4,000 are female, according to the International Society of Women Airline Pilots; around 70 of SAA’s 780 pilots are female.
“At 9%, we are still higher than the international average, and [Mars’ cadet program] were at 25%, which is even higher. It’s been through the cadet program that we’ve increased our percentage of women. SAA’s aim was 50-50, but I don’t think that’s ever happened. There were some intakes where only women survived, and women have a higher passing rate,” says Trembath.
SAA has offered a cadet training program since 1994, and it is highly selective including extensive medical and psychometric testing.
“The cadet program only takes a selected number of people, not everybody gets in, you have to be chosen, you have to be good enough, like these two,” she says, pointing at Hochstrasser and Mars.
“It’s difficult to get into the cadet program, I was told they’d received 8,000 applicants. They only chose 16 from those and the selection process took a year,” says Mars.
“We did psychometric testing, if you passed that, you went for a medical and a personality test, and then there is a final interview before you get chosen,” says Hochstrasser.
“You never know exactly what they’re looking for. The most important thing is the actual desire, because it’s a hard road for men as well as women, if you don’t have that desire then you won’t have the tenacity to stick it out. That’s probably what they’re looking for: do you really, really want it,” says Trembath.
Trembath’s non-conformist parents loaned her money to attend a flying school, where she completed her private and commercial pilot’s license. In the early 1980s, it cost around R15,000 to qualify. Today, it costs a minimum of R350,000 ($33,000), and flight training costs around R1,300 ($122) an hour. Due to the cost, some qualify through the air force, many subsequently move into commercial aviation to clock more flying hours.
After earning her wings, it was time to fly, but no one wanted a female pilot, and an inexperienced one at that.
“You always think each step of your commercial license is the most difficult: exams are difficult, getting the hours is difficult, writing your final flight tests is difficult, but it’s not. The most difficult part was getting a job as a woman back in
the 1980s.
“I got turned down for a couple of jobs because I was a woman and I was told that to my face. It took a lot of persistence and I had to hang in there,” says Trembath.
There aren’t many opportunities to gain experience, but newly-qualified South African pilots are hired by South African companies to fly their airplanes throughout Africa.
Trembath became a pioneer in South African aviation: “SAA didn’t have any women pilots before 1988. They accepted me along with two other women [Brenda Howett and Jennifer Burger], that was a whole new thing for the industry.”
In 1993, she was also the first South African female pilot who qualified to fly a Boeing 747-400. During her 32-year career, she is proud to have had many firsts and to have witnessed change.
“Today, as a woman, it’s a lot easier to find a job. In small companies, women are judged on their merits and no one is turned down because they’re a woman,” says Trembath.
There may be more female pilots today, but they still experience prejudice. Between the three of them, they recount stories of hesitant parents, unsupportive guidance counselors and mocking friends. Similarly, passengers do double takes when they see a female pilot, elderly men openly pray during a flight, and passengers pass snide remarks about empty kitchens.
“Two students came to the flight deck to say hello. He was from Netherlands and she was from Finland. She asked, ‘Are you the pilot?’ I said, ‘Yes, didn’t you hear the PA announcements?’ She said, ‘no, so you actually fly the airplane? Females can be pilots?’ It was strange because she comes from a first-world country and yet still has the same perceptions as everybody else,” says Hochstrasser.
They have learnt not to try change people’s minds, but to deal prejudice with humor and through empowering communication.
“Whatever you’re doing, you have to have a passion for it, because it won’t always be easy. Provided that you enjoy it and you’re doing it because you really, really want to do it, don’t do it for anyone else,” says Mars.
Truer words were never said.

Women Power At 30,000ft

At the well-attended launch of her book Good Morning, Mr Mandela in Johannesburg in June, Zelda la Grange, Nelson Mandela’s trusted aide who he called ‘Zeldina’, was introduced “as the person who walked in the same steps as one of the greatest legends”. Archbishop Desmond Tutu said in a televized message on the occasion: “Your utter devotion to Madiba was so obvious to anyone…In many ways, it was a symbol of hope for the new relationships in our country.”
La Grange says ‘Khulu’ (grandfather) or Madiba always knew she would write a book. The Afrikaner, who was brought up in apartheid South Africa, started as a typist in the office of the first democratically elected South African President in 1994 at the age of 23, going on to work with Mandela in various capacities for 19 years. She started penning down her thoughts in 2009, “not for the purpose of it becoming a book, but to offload memories”.
“It’s a personal memoir and I want people to read the book and be inspired by my change,” said la Grange, ahead of the launch, when we caught up with her for more:
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Can you describe your first meeting with
Madiba in 1994 at the Union Buildings?
I bumped into him, he extended his hand and I said ‘Good morning, Mr Mandela’. That was the turning point of my life.
He broke all my defenses. I was brought up to believe this person is my enemy, and when he spoke to me in Afrikaans, I felt guilty and started crying. I felt responsible, that my people and I were brought up to believe that he is the enemy. And yet you can see the sincerity on his face, his smile; and [I was thinking] why was I so afraid of him. It was in complete contrast to what I expected and I cried. He told me at that first meeting I was overreacting.
Did you draw any criticism in the early years when working for him?
At first, there was a lot of criticism within his own political circles, about why he chose a white woman. He was very careful to relate that story to me at first, knowing I was sensitive and after a while, he would joke about it. He would repeat the entire conversation and say: “Can you believe they would say this?”
It also provided people with entertainment. Madiba’s and my sense of humor had a strange similarity; so we would joke about even these things. He was always looking for humor in any situation. There is nothing laughable about being in prison for 27 years, but he was always trying to find the lighter side of things.
Did he ever get angry?
He had vices and virtues like everyone else. He was a very determined, almost hotheaded person. You couldn’t sway him once he decided something. You knew not to mess with him when he was angry. [But] Madiba didn’t hold grudges, he would get over something very quickly but you would know exactly how he felt. If you look at the CODESA negotiations, he was really angry at F.W. de Klerk at some point – the photographers managed to capture his body language beautifully. He managed to change the narrative. He always had this mindset of reconciliation, of unity, and there was a strategy behind whatever he did.
How was the transition once he retired from the Presidency?
The morning after his retirement was quite a wakeup call. We thought we would pretty much have access to state resources, and we could rely on certain things from the government, but any retiring head of state is in for a full surprise. We had no media protocol, no foreign affairs – all of that was gone.
You have traveled widely with him. Any memories?
I am reminded of our visit to Iran, during President Khatami’s presidency. In the book, you will see how important women’s empowerment is for Madiba. He insisted on me going to the palace where women are not allowed. So we went to dinner at the President’s residence, and there were only male bodyguards and security. I was fighting off photographers, as Madiba’s eyes were sensitive to flashlights. I tried staying in the back so not to offend anybody with my presence. It was very noticeable I was the only female there. A butler then sent for me, and Madiba said, “Oh Zeldina, the President wants to have supper with you.” The whole time, the President asked about South Africa, and Madiba would not answer; so I had to speak. I was put on the spot.
Did you get to spend enough time with him in the final years?
The later years, from 2008, when he started slowing down, he stopped all public appearances and meetings. There was no business any longer to discuss. I tried to go once a week to Qunu [to meet him], more on a personal basis.
How did you come to terms with his passing?
Those ten days of the funeral, I will never want to relive again. You have to deal with the outpouring of emotions from the outside world, and you don’t have time to deal with your own emotions. I still find myself thinking, has it really happened, is he really not there anymore? I have never lost anyone close to me. I am very fortunate. Both my parents are still alive. This is a very new experience for me.
Are you still in touch with
Graça Machel?
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I am very close to her. She is true to her name; she epitomizes grace and strength and has been an emotional stronghold for all of us, through his illness. She was not there only for Madiba, but for us as well.
What kind of work are you
involved in now?
I am still contracted with the Nelson Mandela Foundation; at present [I take part in] leadership courses for the foundation, and I do a bit of motivational speaking, just telling people my story and conveying the lessons I have learnt.
Did you ever think you put your life on hold?
I think I have gained so much, and have been so exceptionally privileged that I wouldn’t say I put my life on hold really. It evolved into something greater. My working hours were nonstop. When Madiba was President, he would call at 2AM and say, can you get hold of Minister Trevor Manuel? I didn’t go for a movie for 10 years. I was too scared he would call and I wouldn’t be able to help him.
You were very special to him?
It would be incorrect to say I was the only one, or the special one. There were other people who played vital roles in his life. My role was confined to his public life, so people need to see it in the context of my duties.

How Madiba Changed Me

It was like re-living a moment in South African history, going back 58 years with Sophia Williams-De Bruyn, to the place where it all began.
We are outside the Union Buildings in the South African capital Pretoria, and De Bruyn is wearing a dark coat and shades on a cold winter morning.
She was hardly 18 when as one of four women leaders, she marched 20,000 other women to the Union Buildings on August 9, 1956.
Today, she is an elegant, demure grandmother, and the last living member of the famous four who led the protest, the others being Lilian Ngoyi, Helen Joseph and Rahima Moosa.
It has not been an easy journey, and this particular moment stokes many memories of that historic day.
“I had no fear,” she said, as we made our way to Pretoria.
The women had decided that they did not need, or want, passbooks (special identification booklets that limited their freedom of movement) as black or colored women. And as she delivered their angst in a letter to the Prime Minister JG Strijdom, a major supporter of the apartheid government, on that chilly August day, De Bruyn and her comrades set the precedent for Women’s Day in South Africa.
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<div id="attachment_6391" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6391" class="size-medium wp-image-6391" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/Sophia-de-Bruyn_Womans-March-300x217.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="217" />The 50th anniversary of the march in 2006.</div>
The 1950s were a tumultuous time in South Africa. Mass meetings were often met with violence by authorities. And political organizations, designed to fight the system, were separated by race. The rule of law, which accorded non-white South Africans the status of second class citizens in their own country, was at its worst.
This was why the Women’s March was the ultimate act of defiance.
It was unheard of in those days for any woman, let alone colored women, to stroll around the Union Buildings, the seat of South African government. For De Bruyn, the buildings housed more than the men responsible for deciding their fate. To her, they were the “Holy Grail”.
And after surviving the travails of getting the women to Pretoria, she was unafraid of any consequences.
The women had journeyed far and raised a fortune to make the march. De Bruyn’s group arrived from the Eastern Cape in two coaches. They sold tea and scones at political meetings for a profit of three pence, and a shilling was earned from serving chicken stew and rice. These little enterprises raised enough to make the long trip north.
Originally, the women had intended to camp outside the Union Buildings for an entire week. But the logistics of that plan were too difficult to follow through. Instead, they organized within their splinter groups and made their way, separately, towards Pretoria. When she saw the women that day, De Bruyn says she was gratified.
“The glory of how they looked, and their dignity and grace, and that determination in lifting their feet in a place where no other African person had done before,” she says.
The women came in droves and that surprised De Bruyn. There were women of every race at the march and she remembers the splendor of that scene.
“It was a splendid day, [there were] women in all sorts of dress – Indian women wore saris, the African National Congress [ANC] women in their green, black and gold and others in their everyday wear.”
She didn’t realize how many they were until she “sat and looked back at them, in their thousands”.
After the march, De Bruyn committed herself further to the freedom struggle. As the 1960s ended, she joined her late husband, Henry De Bruyn, who was exiled in Zambia. While in Lusaka, she took evening classes and studied for her O level certificate exams. Three years later, she moved to Nairobi and earned a diploma in education. The De Bruyns did not return to South Africa until the early 1990s to a short-lived return. Soon after the ANC came to power in 1994, she moved with her husband to Jordan as the first South African diplomats there.
Even when in exile, De Bruyn concerned herself with the freedom of the South African women she left behind. She spearheaded the ANC’s Women’s League in Lusaka and, with the help of then ANC president, O.R. Tambo, forged a place for women in the party. But her concerns have shifted, over the years, to the freedom of younger African women.
“I think our young women have got it in them. Today, the things that are there for them weren’t there for us. What gives me a sense of gratitude is to see our young women and what they can do.”
When speaking about the 1956 march, De Bruyn is humble about her role in the protest. She insists that it was an “event of women” in South Africa’s history and not her own. Yet the memory and the triumph of that August day still drive her.
“It lives on in my psyche,” she says, taking a long, hard look at the Union Buildings.

LOOKING BACK At A Landmark Day

It’s 8am and Ela Gandhi, wearing a traditional khadi kameez, is seated on a sofa by the window of her modest 13th floor apartment in the hilly Glenwood area of Durban, South Africa.
The apartment, where she lives with her youngest daughter Ashish Ramgobin and her two children, overlooks the Durban harbor and offers sweeping vistas of the city. A stately piano is next to her, which she often plays, and above it, a painting of her grandfather Mahatma Gandhi gifted to her by the Rustomjee business family in Durban.
In the living room where she is, are glass showcases filled with sepia photographs, Gandhi memorabilia, pictures of Ela with Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama, and several silver and crystal plaques, medallions and awards, among them, the prestigious Padma Bhushan (India’s third highest civilian award) she received from the Indian government in 2007.
In January this year, Ela received an award for her lifetime contribution to the freedom struggle in South Africa alongside other veterans of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) – the armed struggle wing of the African National Congress (ANC). Ela clarifies she had never been a member of the armed wing, but receiving the award was an honor.
On the other side of the room, pictures of her as a child with her grandmother Kasturba Gandhi, and in the lap of Abdul Gaffar Khan, a lifelong pacifist and friend of her grandfather’s. There is a black and white photo in the hallway that is a particular favorite: of a six-year-old Ela in a white dress standing next to Mahatma Gandhi at the height of the freedom struggle in India.
In her bedroom are bookshelves laden with tomes on her grandfather; she rates the one by author Sudheendra Kulkarni to be the best. She spends most mornings here, working on the computer, editing articles for the monthly non-profit newspaper Satyagraha published in Durban.
<div id="attachment_6385" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6385" class="wp-image-6385 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/FWA-2014-Aug-Sep-030-031-Ela-Gandhi-002-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Ela at the Phoenix Settlement in Inanda; on the wall is the reproduction of a note signed “MK Gandhi”</div>
“I have been inspired by my grandfather’s teachings all my life. Be the change you wish to see, is my favorite quote of his,” says Ela.
Her daughter Ramgobin, who runs an NGO promoting sustainable livelihoods for the poor, says Gandhi is an important part of their legacy in South Africa. “In India, Mahatma Gandhi is a public holiday, but his messages are very relevant in our lives here,” she says.
Ela has upheld the family’s legacy, running several community projects, among them the Phoenix Settlement where Gandhi ran his anti-discrimination activities during his 21-year stint in South Africa. All through her illustrious political career, Ela has had the distinction of interacting with Nobel laureates – Tutu, Mandela, and Albert Luthuli who was also a close friend of the Gandhis.
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The Drive To Phoenix
Ela revs up the engine of her turquoise Toyota sedan for the 20 kilometer drive to the Phoenix Settlement in Inanda district. As she hits the N2 North freeway – she is a careful driver – she speaks of the apartheid era, when she was banned in 1973 for her political activism, and placed under house arrest for eight-and-a-half years.
“I had to report to the police station every Saturday and couldn’t leave the house between 7PM and 7AM. I had to stay indoors on weekends and public holidays,” she says.
The years roll by as she recollects the day her son Khush was shot dead, a year before South Africa’s democratic elections. He was only 29. To date, she does not know who was behind it or if it was politically motivated.
“The scar of losing a child will never leave you. [We] will never know why it happened. It was covered up,” says Ela.
In 1990, she was among the United Democratic Front team that met with Mandela at Pollsmoor Prison in Cape Town prior to his release. When the ANC government came to power in 1994, she served as an MP for nine years. She has met with Madiba many times since.
“He used to call me by name,” she says.
As still part of the Phoenix constituency, Ela developed a program against domestic violence, and started her work with the Gandhi Development Trust.
When we finally reach the Phoenix Settlement, it is clear Ela feels at home here.
This is where she was born in 1940, living here for the first six years of her life. After the Mahatma’s return to India in 1914, it was Ela’s father Manilal Gandhi who came back to Phoenix in 1917 to run the Gujarati-English newspaper Indian Opinion and continue his father’s legacy. Ela’s father was also a strong influence in her life on the Phoenix farm.
“We had a small kitchen with a chimney and a central dining room. All the children slept on the wooden floor. The place was buzzing with life. Although we had no power or water, we had very good times here,” she recalls.
When her grandfather first set up the communal farm in 1904, the homestead was a humble wood and iron dwelling. He valued simplicity, manual work and self-sufficiency. “It was a snake-infested property and my grandfather was afraid of snakes,” she says.
What was a 100-acre farm is today “a fenced-in area of about 1.5 acres” including a school and a museum, which records Mahatma Gandhi’s influences – Tolstoy being one of them – and how he influenced the world.
“This is a site of extraordinary significance in the liberation movement. John Dube, the founding president of the ANC, was his neighbor. There was so much contact between them, but it’s not talked about,” says Ela.
Ela remembers one particular conversation she had with her grandfather, while at the Sevagram (land of service) ashram in India that advocated simple living and farming.
“I told him that if they want to cook and serve pumpkins in the communal kitchens everyday, why do they call it ‘land of service’? They should call it ‘land of pumpkins’. Later during a speech, he told the people that when he asked them to live in simplicity, he did not expect them to eat pumpkins every day. I remember so distinctly that conversation with him and the aftermath of it. Everybody was curious who had leaked it to him.”
Ela says even after he left South Africa, Gandhi stayed in touch with Indians here, telling them “your destiny is connected with Africans, so work closely with them”.
Ela visits India at least twice a year, visiting her mother’s relatives in the state of Maharashtra, and never missing an opportunity to visit the Gandhi memorial at Raj Ghat in New Delhi.
“I visit India, but I am a proud South African,” says Ela. She is Gandhi’s indelible link to South Africa.

Grandfather Gandhi AND I

It’s a scenic two-hour drive from Kigali to the rural landscape of Kinazi in Rwanda’s southern province. Being the only journalist in this field mission led by the energetic and dynamic Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women, has its advantages.
Firstly, there’s a grand welcome awaiting us at the other end.
Barefoot children and grateful women greet the convoy, erupting in song and dance in pink, yellow and blue costumes that put the beautiful hillsides to shame. The men and infants are huddled under umbrellas in the warm sun, and the women give the occasion “so much zest”, as Mlambo-Ngcuka later says.
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In Kinazi, UN Women partners with Terimbere Mutegarugori, a cooperative bringing together 93 women from various backgrounds to enable them to financially support themselves and their families through agricultural initiatives.
This group is one of 11 cooperatives supported through the Imali Project, meaning ‘wealth’. Currently, they are being given seed money, modern greenhouses and training to increase tomato and mushroom production. This project is financed through core funding to UN Women, from the Government of Korea and in partnership with the Imbuto Foundation, headed by Rwanda’s First Lady Jeannette Kagame.
That the Rwandan government is committed to gender promotion is evident even in this tiny village.
Women are an unprecedented 63.8% of Rwanda’s parliament. Yet, there is need to ensure they are given skills to generate daily income, develop a savings mindset, upgrade their skills and sustain their communities.
As Mlambo-Ngcuka tours the greenhouse inspecting rows and rows of red, juicy tomatoes, soon to be sold to the market, the farmers around her swell with pride. This project has changed their lives.
In just two years of operation, the results are there to see. Members are using the money to pay the children’s school fees, and have also opened savings accounts to transition to the next level of empowerment.
“Food is a woman’s issue. It’s your responsibility to make sure the nation is well-fed, to make sure that out of the good land, you also have opportunities. You feed your children and yourself and you also come here to generate the surplus to sell, and [you get] income. You have done well,” said Mlambo-Ngcuka in her address to them.
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“We should also remember the other cooperatives and the 11 greenhouses spread throughout Rwanda. Together you can create a critical mass and take charge of the market. Sitting in New York, I should be able to eat a tomato from Imali. I want to be in South Africa, and eat a tomato from Imali,” she said.
Truly, you help a woman, you help the world.

Tomatoes From  Kinazi To New York

The shocking abduction, and no return, of the 300 Nigerian schoolgirls has entered its fourth month. Fears for the fate of the girls have been escalating since they were the stars of a viral video released by their captors, the extremist group Boko Haram, just a few weeks after they were taken. The minute-long clip panned in, then out, of a dry field in an undisclosed location. The girls sat fearfully, huddled together in long grey burkas which covered their hair, but not their faces. It remains the only proof the girls may still be alive.
Thus began the social media-driven ‘#BringBackOurGirls’ campaign. Despite its many controversies and false starts, it offered some international solidarity for not just the girls taken from Chibok but for other trafficked women around world. The global outrage highlighted the urgent need to fight for the rights of countless women lured from their homes, hideously exploited – and never returned.
Worries have begun to mount, especially after Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau’s admission that he was going to sell his female captives, that the girls may have been separated, pooled into smaller groups, then trafficked as sex slaves to Europe, Asia or other African destinations. This, of course, is one of the many working theories on what might have happened to the girls. Nothing is confirmed.
Several weeks ago, unconfirmed reports from Associated Press flooded international news cycles claiming Boko Haram had struck once more. Allegedly the group kidnapped another 60 girls from villages close to Chibok along with a host of young boys.
All these incidents have turned the global attention to human trafficking – a multi-billion dollar international industry which operates in a hidden network of alleys and dimly-lit apartments, where women’s lives are traded alongside money, illegal drugs and weapons.
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Going Undercover To Report
Tobore Ovuorie, an investigative journalist with Nigeria’s Premium Times, says six out of 10 people trafficked to the West are Nigerian. She has spent the bulk of her career studying the human trafficking trade and even lost a friend because of the industry. Last year, with support from an Amsterdam newspaper, Ovuorie went undercover for seven months to find out how the African trafficking syndicates worked.
Posing as a sex worker, Ovuorie saw, first hand, the terrible realities of the trafficking world. There were the orgies, a seemingly endless supply of controlled drugs and bags full of hard currency. First Ovuorie was taken to a ‘boot camp’, which all the girls had to endure before being moved to Italy. It was there that she saw an even darker side of the business. Two of the women she was with were beheaded in front her. Ovuorie claims that the group that owned them also sold human organs on the black market.
“It was the worst moment of my investigation,” she says.
Eventually, Ovuorie escaped the syndicate at the Nigeria-Benin border. She says that she walked away from the experience, “bruised and beaten, but still alive”. She has since written about her time with the traffickers although some passionate skeptics have questioned the credibility of her account.
But that was the least of her worries.
“When I returned to write the story, I feared reprisal from the syndicates and I fear I will have to watch my back for the rest of my life. Forgive and forget isn’t written in the dictionaries of these monsters,” she wrote in an email.
Despite the controversy around it, Ovuorie says she does not regret telling her story.
“It was worth it. Human trafficking is increasing in Nigeria.”
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Lured For Work, Food, Even Love
A majority of human trafficking activity is far more insidious and calculated than the tactics of Boko Haram. In South Africa, the Durban-based anti-trafficking group, Umgeni Community Empowerment Centre (UCEC), understands this well. Their counselors have rescued scores of underaged girls soliciting on city streets especially within the local red light strip, Mahatma Gandhi Street. The girls come from a mix of backgrounds, some born in Durban while some were brought in from cities further afield like Harare, Dar es Salaam and Maputo.
It may be a different context from northern Nigeria but the impact is just as devastating. Far removed from the higher echelons of piling statistical reports and complicated legislation, counselors, like the ones at UCEC, deal with the gritty, often terrifying realities of the trafficking netherworld. The women they help are mostly drug addicts and emotionally-scarred. Trust is a rare commodity amongst these women and going home, full of shame, is never an option.
Joy Conradie, a UCEC counsellor, says these women are unwittingly drawn into the trafficking world by promises of work, money, food, clothing and, in some cases, love.
“The targeted victim is spotted, be it in a club or simply getting onto a taxi,” she says, “the traffickers will make contact and they are very charming and highly manipulative.”
Conradie says the women are usually force-fed drugs and once they become addicts, the “free party ends and the nightmare begins”. The traffickers then demand payment for the drugs. The trafficked women, now addicts and destitute, are trapped by the debt. Left with little choice, they are forced into prostitution to pay their dues. Often, refusing to sell their bodies leads to them being “beaten, raped, threatened and isolated until she gives in”. This, unfortunately, is only a single scenario. Trafficked women across the world face a diversity of abuses.
“The girls are often moved from city to city and even across borders,” Conradie claims, adding the youngest victim they have helped was just 12 years old. The irony of this kind of sexual slavery is that it is largely driven by a desperation to escape poverty which traffickers exploit with offers of jobs that don’t exist.
Conradie says it is not just poverty that allows trafficking syndicates to flourish. A lack of education and awareness within the communities where victims are sourced also contributes to the trafficking cycle. But the lack of economic options also exacerbates the situation.
“We also come across sheer desperation in child-headed households, where an older teenage girl will prostitute herself in order to feed her younger siblings,” says Conradie.
To combat human trafficking, she says, more safe houses need to be provided for victims, as well as far stricter border controls, skilled rapid response teams to investigate human trafficking cases, and comprehensive intelligence gathering to understand where and how trafficking outfits operate.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) said in May that forced labor in the private economy draws in around $150 billion in illegal profits each year. Two thirds of this figure comes directly from the sex trade.
The organization’s Director-General, Guy Ryder, said that this added “a new urgency [for] efforts to eradicate [this] fundamentally evil, but hugely profitable practice, as soon as possible”. The report also claimed that there are approximately 21 million people bound by forced labor and trafficking around the world.
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Legislation to fight trafficking syndicates has been, slowly but surely, implemented across Africa and the world. In South Africa, every province has an assigned Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force. However, their power is limited. The global nature of human trafficking implies not a local, but international solution.

She’s Not For Sale

A Creative Power

The names Nhlanhla Nciza and Mafikizolo are like bread and butter. Nciza embodies style and elegance, but behind this creative, is a businesswoman trying to make her mark parallel to her music career.
When she grabs the microphone, the world dances at her feet. Nciza fills the stage with joie de vivre and ebullience. She has the voice most people only dream of, that contemporary, yet retro throwback to Miriam Makeba, which appeals to both young and old. She dances on stage with panache, like a shy child being encouraged, but with elegance and class.
Nciza, 36, is not just the ‘first lady’ of Mafikizolo, but a woman harnessing another passion into a business. Having taken interest in the imaging of her career, it naturally followed that this stylish songbird would make a successful foray into fashion design, through NN Vintage.
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Mafikizolo, which means ‘new arrivals’ in isiZulu, has long outgrown its name. Nciza and fellow band member, Theo Kgosinkwe, have stuck it out for more than a decade, through thick and thin.
The duo has enjoyed a longevity uncharacteristic of many music bands. They started out competing at talent competitions, and now they’ve ended up winning numerous accolades.
“The awards mean a lot. We’re getting more love than we did before,” she says.
At the fourth MTV Africa Music Awards (MAMAs) in June, in Durban, Nciza thought she had no chance. A Nigerian was certain to win with their country’s 125 million subscribers ready to cast their mobile votes. A safe bet, since the Nigerian mobile market is the largest on the continent. Instead it was Nciza and Kgosinkwe who ended up walking to the podium for Song of the Year, for their hit anthem Khona. They also won for ‘Best Group’.
“Winning Song of the Year means a lot especially that Nigeria has a bigger population than South Africa, and we still won the award. It shows that people still love our music all over the continent,” says Nciza.
Mafikizolo returned from the United States (US) in June following their debut at the Black Entertainment Television (BET) Awards in Los Angeles. The judges nominated Mafikizolo for Best African International Act, pitted against other exceptional African musicians including Nigeria’s Davido. Together, they had collaborated on a song called Tchelete, meaning money in seTswana, that’s currently ruling the airwaves in South Africa. Davido won on the night but for Mafikizolo, just being there – and performing for the first time in the US – was remarkable.
Fifteen months after releasing their double-platinum eighth album, Reunited, following their hiatus, the group sealed their comeback with eight wins at the South African Music Awards (SAMA) in April, along with Channel O and Metro FM Awards, also in South Africa.
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Trials And Tragedy
Mafikizolo’s story is also one of struggle. The band formed in 1997, and signed with one of South Africa’s biggest recording companies, Kalawa Jazzmee Records. Their first four albums barely made a ripple.
Worse was to come&#8230;
In December 2001, the group, then a three-member band, nearly died in a car accident. The trio had decided to drive to Katlehong, following a performance in Durban. Once home, they decided to drive in the dead of night to Mafikeng for a performance the next day.
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“Theo wanted to drive, I guess he wanted to impress his new girlfriend, now his wife. So the rest of us fell asleep and we were woken up by a big bang. And the next thing I remember was lying on the gravel on the side of the road,” says Nciza.
Their car had been hit by a train. Fortunately that night, all of them survived. The rest of the band was discharged the next day from hospital, but Nciza had to stay on for over three months.
Lucky to be alive, the group released an album the following year, Sibongile, meaning ‘we thank you’ in isiZulu. It was their breakthrough.
All was well. The group had picked up the pieces and were getting back on their feet when tragedy struck again on Valentine ’s Day in 2004. Vocalist Tebogo Madingoane was shot and killed in a road rage incident in South Africa.
Madigoane had brought the Kwaito sound to the group and his loss was another blow. Nciza and Kgosinkwe never thought they would end up as a duo, but in sadness, they did. After mourning Madingoane, the two picked themselves up with the sound of Mafikizolo.
Then came a purple patch. They released three more albums, Khwela, Van Toeka Af and Six Mabone.
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Mafikizolo 2.0
Their popularity grew but in 2008 they took a break to reinvent themselves as solo artists.
“It was scary for me and a completely different experience as I was so used to depending on Theo for so many things… I had to gain confidence and believe in myself, so I used my other talent to grab people’s attention and that was my [passion for] fashion,” she says.
During this time, Nciza released two albums, Inguquko (Change) and Lingcinga Zam (My Thoughts), and also started to put more hours into her clothing business, which she had started a year before.
However tragedy followed her. Nciza and her record company executive husband, Thembinkosi Nciza, lost their five-year-old daughter Zinathi in a car accident in December 2009. She was with her grandmother on their way to a pre-school to pick up a cousin when their car crashed into a tree. The grandmother blacked out behind the wheel and suffered minor leg and chest injuries.
“My work was greatly affected. I was in the middle of promoting my second album when Zinathi passed, so everything was on hold. A part of me is gone and it is the kind of emptiness that I may have to accept that may never be filled… I really did not know where to begin, where to start picking up the pieces and for a very long time I just remained in one place not knowing how to move on, it felt wrong to move on,” says Nciza.
“Were it not for my husband, I really don’t know how I could have started living again. In 2012, I was blessed with a son, Luvuyo and I am just grateful to God that he gave me a chance to be a mom again.”
<div id="attachment_6345" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6345" class="size-medium wp-image-6345" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/451413792-300x210.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="210" />LOS ANGELES, CA &#8211; JUNE 28: Singers Theo Kgosinkwe (L) and Nhlanhla Nciza of Mafikizolo perform onstage at the Music Around the Globe during the 2014 BET Experience At L.A. LIVE on June 28, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/BET/Getty Images for BET)</div>
After mourning her daughter, she pulled herself together, mustered strength and continued with her career. Her family kept her going.
“Keeping busy helped me focus on other things, so I started writing music again, performing and started designing again,” she says.
Through NN Vintage, Nciza started to hire young people looking for jobs.
“I wanted to develop young talent. It was more about the love [of clothes and music] and not making money. I didn’t look at it in the business sense,” she says.
Nciza says she acquired her compassionate nature from her father, a court interpreter, who, even when his immediate family was struggling, would invite cousins into his home. Nciza ventured into the fashion business without any prior experience.
She hired eight seamstresses, a receptionist and rented a small studio where they could work from, financing it all herself, at a cost of around R70,000 ($6,500) a month. Revenue from her music career kept the business alive. But it was doomed from the first stitch.
“I realized a year and a half into my business that I had employed too many people and [had] too much equipment. When the recession came, I was probably the first person to go down,” she says.
“I lost a lot of money, around R600,000 ($56,000) including my savings. I was new in fashion and I needed to prove myself. I was a new designer and I couldn’t sell a R10,000 ($930) dress.”
Most times, the people who bought her dresses were those who knew her and her music, yet there were times when she struggled to make sales. She was so proud she kept the business failures to herself.
“I didn’t want to tell people that NN Vintage wasn’t there anymore,” she says. Her husband could have helped financially, but Nciza wanted to go it alone. She had to let go of nearly all the employees who worked for her. By the end of 2010, to keep her brand alive, Nciza stopped dressing clients and only designed for herself.
The following year, she went back to the drawing board. She started by sketching her own designs and slowly hired seamstresses to bring her designs to life.
“Right now it makes sense. I still want to learn more and empower myself. I want to learn how to make a garment,” says Nciza.
“When I started out, I was a bit conservative. I wore below-the-knee dresses. It was me at the time. What I do is not necessarily following trends.”
And indeed, Nciza is a fashion risk-taker. She is a musician with a palette for setting trends, just like the black and white dress on the cover of this issue, which she first wore for the opening act of the MAMAs.
“For this particular performance, I wanted attire that commanded attention, so I played with a lot of color and bright accessories. My designs are always inspired by Africa. They are feminine, yet bold and fierce at the same time,” she says.
At last year’s SAMAs, she wore a long-sleeved silver umbrella shirt with a pink ribbon around her waist and skirt. Another risk she took was at this year’s Metro FM Awards where she wore a monochrome striped peplum shirt with an umbrella skirt.
Her designs are for her fans. The revived NN Vintage is aimed at making garments for young adults and older women carving a niche in their industries.
Having been in the fashion business only a few years now, Nciza admits she is not making “crazy” money just yet, but claims people trust her brand. Nciza says she now sells garments costing up to R7,500 ($700), and is slowly getting her clients back, some from as far as Tanzania and Botswana. This would allow her to employ designers and more seamstresses and also open a store when the time is right.
“I plan to create a special range to supply to bigger stores, so it can reach all parts of the country, as that is my biggest challenge right now. I have also started with a men’s range and it will be launched soon,” says Nciza.
Few musicians are able to juggle their music careers, business and family, but Nciza is doing well.
<div id="attachment_6346" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6346" class="size-medium wp-image-6346" src="/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/451412938-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />LOS ANGELES, CA &#8211; JUNE 28: Singer Nhlanhla Nciza of Mafikizolo performs onstage at the Music Around the Globe during the 2014 BET Experience At L.A. LIVE on June 28, 2014 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Tommaso Boddi/BET/Getty Images for BET)</div>
Mafikizolo’s music is inspired by their upbringing, their neighborhoods, their stories of love, and hardship.
“You don’t need to sell your soul in order to get ahead. Try and push, only talent will get you where you want,” she says.
Indeed, hard work and talent have taken Nciza and Mafikizolo to attain the success they are enjoying today. Nciza has created a new brand of South African music and a new brand of fashion. Both have her unmistakable stamp.

The First Lady  Of Afropop

More than half the world’s seven billion people watched some part of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa and it is expected many more will tune in to the Brazil tournament over the next few weeks until July 13. Less than a tenth of those will watch the tournament’s women’s equivalent.
Even though records of women playing football date back to 1892, it took 61 years after the first men’s World Cup in 1930 for a parallel women’s event to start. Six editions of the women’s tournament have been held and it commands only 407.8 million viewers. Africa and the Middle East, grouped in the same bracket for the official statistics, contribute only 39.2 million of those eyeballs.
That number is influenced by factors including technology and access to information but it also serves as an indicator of the value of the women’s game to the region. It is no surprise that Nigeria and South Africa – two of the counties with functioning women’s football leagues – lead viewership statistics with 13 million and 4.2 million people watching the Women’s World Cup respectively.
<div id="attachment_6336" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6336" class="size-medium wp-image-6336" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/B13KYMN0421-300x208.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="208" />Cape Town Roses (Dark blue) v Gauteng (blue) during the 2013 Sasol League National Championship on the 25 November 2013 at Alabama Stadium ©Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix</div>
Nigeria is, by some distance, the African country that has advanced furthest in women’s football. Matches were reported on from the 1940s and it has had a women’s league since 1978. The most recent edition of the league, the 2013/14 season, has three divisions funded by the Nigerian Football Federation in the absence of sponsorship.
Despite a lack of regular competition, especially in their region, Nigeria’s women’s team is the most successful in Africa.
The Super Falcons are the top-ranked team on the continent, sit 34th in the world and have triumphed in eight African Women’s Championships (AWC) between 1991 and 2010. They have also participated in every women’s World Cup but have failed to get out of the group stage.
A large part of their success is on account of intense practice. In early April, Nigeria organized a training camp for their final qualification match for the AWC in May, giving themselves seven weeks of training time. Included in that was a friendly match against Cameroon, the next-best team in Africa. Games such as these is what captain Evelyn Nwabuoko thinks will make the team even better.
“We need friendly matches and we ought to play bigger teams. It’s not about results but about access to your players. You get to know your players and those to rely on during international games,” says Nwabuoko.
South Africa’s national women’s team has fared better in that department. They were the only African country to participate in the Cyprus Cup, an annual invitation-only tournament for women’s teams. South Africa have been to the event four times since 2009 but only won three matches and struggled against European opposition.
However, players described it as important to their growth.
“I found things very different from club level to the international stage – the tactics, ball work at training and moving into space at specific times during matches was a key learning area for me,” says Shiwe Nogwanya, a striker who is based in Bloemfontein in South Africa’s Free State.
South Africa also has a strong domestic structure in place. Last year, petrochemicals company Sasol signed a four-year deal to sponsor the women’s league and national team. Their’s is a multi-tiered league consisting of 144 teams, 16 in each of the country’s nine provinces.
Teams play every weekend to ensure continuity of game time and the provincial winners compete in a week-long national championship
in December.
<div id="attachment_6337" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-6337" class="size-medium wp-image-6337" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/B13LAMN0368-300x183.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="183" />Cape Town Roses (red) v Bloemfontein Celtics (green and white) during the 2013 Sasol League National Championship 3rd and 4th on the 01 December 2013 at Matlosana Stadium ©Muzi Ntombela/BackpagePix</div>
Although not ideal because there is no premiership, South Africa’s new women’s national coach, former Dutch player Vera Pauw, believes it provides the pathway for players to develop.
“Without the league, there is no national team because all those players play in the league. The big challenge is how to get the 144 Sasol League teams playing with the best against the best on a more regular basis,” says Pauw.
Other African teams do not even have the luxury of that problem. Ten African women’s teams, including Congo, Uganda, Angola and Benin, are not ranked because they have been inactive for more than 18 months. Two others, Liberia and Kenya, have not played more than five matches against official opposition and so are only provisionally ranked. Others like Mauritius have yet to play even a single match.
Funding is the major challenge, something Lydia Nsekera, the first woman elected to the FIFA executive committee, who hails from Burundi, agrees with.
“There is little or no funding for female football in Africa, compared to what the male teams get. In Africa, there are people who even question the rationale for funding female football,” says Nsekera.
Small attempts are being made to change that. FIFA provides all African member associations a grant of $250,000 a year and since 2008, 15% ($37,500) of that had to be set aside for women’s football. Just like the number of people keeping an eye on the women’s game, that money is significantly less than the men get but it is all the women’s game has
for now.

Not This Time  For Africa

Fervently chasing after a passion that took me quite long to identify.”
This is what Affiong Williams’ Twitter profile reads. Spend a day with the 28-year-old entrepreneur and you believe it’s not just a clever line, but the story of her life. Her first job out of college may have been in the corporate sector, but for Williams, her passion for business was one she couldn’t ignore. It had tugged at her since she was a child growing up in Nigeria.
She was only six when with the help of her cousin she cooked and sold food to her neighborhood. By second year in college, she had already dabbled in a few odd businesses, such as buying and selling handbags on campus. She left Nigeria when she was 11, spending most of her formative years in South Africa. College was a defining time. It was here she realized what she didn’t want to do.
With a bachelor’s degree in physiology and psychology, she wanted to switch to medicine but realized her strength was business. The post graduate degree she pursued in business administration at the Witwatersrand Business School in Johannesburg was invaluable.
Williams acquired a job with an entrepreneurship incubator, which exposed her to the world of start-ups and businesses. Here, she could apply all the theory she had learned, spending four years, starting as an intern, ending as a portfolio manager. She looked at services that would help entrepreneurs grow across different sectors. It awakened her innate flair.
“I was most inspired by the entrepreneurs. In any economy, small to medium enterprises create the most jobs. I told myself this is what I want to do.”
Williams started researching business ideas and the sectors that inspired her. The South African economy was highly-developed and she knew her competitive advantage, being a foreigner, was also limited, so she veered towards Nigeria.
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“Agriculture was becoming very topical. I started reading up and asking questions,” she says.
Why is there so much inefficiency? Why is there so much waste? Why are fruits rotten? Why can’t we create finished goods? Why do Nigerian products look unappealing? What is stopping Nigerian products from being sold anywhere in the world? A few more pertinent questions and it was the light bulb moment she had been waiting for.
“I decided this is the sector I wanted to get into. I also knew agriculture is a big job creator. I wanted to make Nigerian finished products look good, I wanted to use up our raw materials, and employ a lot of people. I became obsessed. I read about fruit juices, cassava, cash crops etc, and moved into fruit.”
Capital was the next issue.
“I looked at the capital required for food processing. I started figuring out cost in terms of investment. I then stumbled upon [the idea of selling] dried fruits and realized very few people were doing this. It was not that expensive and there were not that many healthy options out there.”
In February 2012, determined to win a government entrepreneurship grant, Williams made the decision to move to Lagos.
“I knew I would win this N10 million (just over $60,000) grant that was going to be my source of capital. I traveled to Nigeria for a second round of applications and made a decision to move back, because I was so sure I would win this grant,” she says.
But did she?
“I did not. My name was not called.”
It was a setback, but Williams had it mapped out. With her savings of $15,000, she started on what was a sink-or-swim journey into a tough market that required more analysis. She drew from her experiences.
She started understanding the value chain better, and engaged in some market-research to see what consumers thought of her dried fruit product. With a tighter rein on funds, it was time to focus on the market.
“Lagos is a hugely urbanized city with a growing middle class and this is where we focused the business. We found a fair percentage of exposed and well-traveled Lagosians already familiar with the product,” she says of the growing number of health-conscious Nigerians, who had little or no time on their hands. Food choices available on the go were a major determinant of health trends.
“Because we are a food product, we are lucky. People can use an immediate taste test to prove whether they like it or not. For our core market, it’s an affordable product,” says Williams. The epiphany may have taken a while, but it was the formula she required.
Agriculture is the most important sector in the Nigerian economy and contributes up to 35% of the country’s GDP. Its 170 million population represents a large domestic market that can support and sustain local production and processing. Unfortunately, limited collaboration exists across regional value chains.
As agribusiness plays a role in jump-starting economic transformation through development of agro-based industries, successful agribusiness investments stimulate growth by providing new markets and developing an input system. This hadn’t escaped Williams’ notice.
She introduced ReelFruit, a healthy range of snacks with variants of mango and pineapple, into the Nigerian market. These are preservative-free fresh tropical fruits, dried and ready for snacking. Its target market is mainly working women, and more products are being developed: a fruit and nut mix, a cashew brand, health drink and kids’ candy. Over the past year, ReelFruit has sold in 62 locations in Nigeria.
“From a business perspective, it made sense, because we are then not exporting raw materials but actually finishing the products here. And if markets can be found for them locally or overseas, then, that’s a win. I found a partner in Ghana to produce on my behalf. They provide the finished product. Now, we get bulk products and are responsible for the packaging. In March 2013, we started selling finished products,” she says.
William’s business has also garnered recognition. She won the BiD Network Women in Business Challenge award in the Netherlands in 2013, and also the top prize for Creative Focus Africa. What inspires her?
“The can-do attitude of Nigerians. There are so many norms and misconceptions about the African woman. As an entrepreneur, despite all these, if you are passionate enough, you will always find a way around it. Having a vision and purpose is what pushed me the most to start a business,” she says.

Little Bites Of Lagos

Roberta Naicker is watching CNBC Africa in her sunny corner office in Johannesburg’s upscale Sandton suburb, and she is not looking happy. A series of bomb blasts have ripped Abuja, Nigeria, only days before the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Africa summit, and she has a team of cameramen, TV journalists and managers leaving to cover the continent’s most important business meet.
As Managing Director of the ABN Group in South Africa that operates CNBC Africa, she has the onerous task of deciding the course of action: news first, or people first?
The coffee on her table is cold. Her fingers are perhaps clammy, as she clasps them, pursing her lips, making her decision. Her people come first.
For the group’s 40-year-old managing director, family has always been a pertinent part of her life, and this, her 300-employee company, is family too.
Hailing from Durban, in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province where the weather is warm and the Indian population numerous, Naicker spent most of her girlhood aspiring to become a chartered accountant. Where others dreamt of Barbie dolls, she dreamt of a college education.
Money was always in short supply, but her parents encouraged her to study. It was 1991, three years before a free South Africa, when Naicker completed her matriculation. She recalls boycotting classes and participating in the ‘Free Nelson Mandela’ campaign in school. Somewhere in the mind of the young girl, the stirrings of change. Would she have known that 17 years on, she would be at the forefront of a large media organization covering the country Mandela envisaged?
After school in 1992, Naicker enrolled for a BCom degree at the University of Durban Westville (now UKZN).
“My parents said, ‘you worry about getting into university, we will worry about paying for it’,” says Naicker. But that was not to be. Naicker discontinued college, opting to pursue her second year BCom part-time through the University of South Africa (UNISA). In 1993, she signed up for a full-time job in her hometown at the age of 19.
“I always had a passion for numbers and my first job was as a junior accountant in a small manufacturing firm. I knew that if I am not going to get somewhere through a formal education, I am going to have to do it through hard work. Those were the goals I set for myself and that is the way I have lived my life the past 20 years,” says Naicker.
Marriage in 1998 saw her relocate to Johannesburg with her husband; this is where her career blossomed, starting in the commercial property management industry. Next up was an assignment as the finance manager of a large organization for six years until 2006.
This was before joining the ABN Group in March 2008. The group had just launched CNBC Africa, and she was hired as Head of Finance. Naicker admits it was an industry she had little knowledge of at the time.
“I was comfortable from the finance perspective, but I didn’t understand media at all. It was completely nerve-racking walking in here and thinking, ‘what am I honestly going to do’? But I saw it as a challenge.”
Naicker calls it the start of an association with an organization that believed in her, and placed all faith in her to do the job, and do it well. For this, Naicker gives all the credit to ABN Group’s Co-founder and Vice Chairman Rakesh Wahi.
As Managing Director, Roberta Naicker is responsible for the overall operations of the ABN Group, which includes CNBC Africa and FORBES AFRICA. She plays an instrumental role in the strategic planning, financing and implementation of FORBES AFRICA, ABN Productions and ABN Training Institute. She currently also serves as a board member; Chair and Managing Director of ABN Productions, ABN Pictures and the ABN Training Institute, Chair of the ABN Education Trust, and Chair of ABN Nigeria and Kenya.
A firm believer in the empowerment of women, here, Naicker speaks about how she made every opportunity – and adversity – a part of her learning curve.

Nothing But Belief

There is a difference between travellers  and tourists; a difference between a trip and journey.
If you fall into the latter category in both instances, then perhaps a jaunt to Jambiani in Zanzibar is worth considering. In three-and-a-half hours, direct bi-weekly flights (if traveling out of Johannesburg in South Africa to Zanzibar) transport the intrepid and the intrigued to another world distinctly different from the metropolis you have left behind. From the shopping malls and high rises of the city of gold heading northeast to six degrees south of the equator and, to some extent, back in time, you arrive in the spice islands of Zanzibar.
For most, the first impressions are that of the old-world Stone Town, a UNESCO World heritage site in Zanzibar city, where one loses oneself in excitingly-confusing narrow streets filled with vendors bent on selling you everything from cashew nuts and badly-recorded CDs of local music to local art and craft (the best of these being the wood works). You will find no malls here, no fast food franchises and very little to remind that you are actually in the 21st century. You become aware that almost every structure is made of coral stone featuring elaborate wooden doors, for which Zanzibar is particularly famous, guarding mysterious and rich cultural heritage within the walls.
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It is now time to head east, crossing the island, toward Jambiani where the melting pot of Arabic, British, Persian, Portuguese and other previous colonial influences give way to real rural Africa. Within an hour ($50 by road in a sedan), you arrive in Jambiani, the village that snakes its way for 10 kilometers up the southeast coast of the island. Leaving the only tar road and arriving in the village via bumpy dirt roads laden with goats and chickens, you are struck by two things. First, the mesmerizing colors of the ocean lightly covering the immense sandbar and, second, the village itself, which is beyond modest and a stark reminder of the fact you are now in one of the poorest parts of the planet.
This can be disconcerting at first, until you notice the smiles, the almost euphoric shouts of jambo (hello) from the children and the genuinely-welcoming demeanor of the people. Jambiani is different from other parts of Zanzibar in that virtually all the hotels are owned by locals, and where there are foreign-run properties, these are almost always in association with the natives either as landlords or equal partners. It is the latter that’s most appealing for travelers looking to support the local community but wanting a level of service and facilities that may be not be present in purely local accommodations.
The three-star Coral Rock Hotel here is roughly $100 per night, and offers the facilities (like Wi-Fi) and services one expects. It’s sandwiched between the ever-changing tides and colors of the Indian Ocean on the one side and the quaint working village of Jambiani on the other.
Whilst the villagers work the beach, ocean and sandbar, you will most likely be spending your time sunbathing, exploring, snorkeling, diving, kitesurfing, kayaking or eating fresh seafood and fruits. The food is enjoyable and the atmosphere relaxing whilst the climate seems to constantly stay sunny and between 28-32 degrees Celsius.
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No need for high heels and formal attire, they are wasted here. Just remember to cover up the bikinis whilst walking in the village or when walking past a mosque. The prime activity and raison d’etre is relaxation. A week here seems like the antidote to the fast-paced rat race in the city. It’s a place where you feel safe and can get away from it all.

Far From The Madding Rats

Europe and America have surely made inroads when it comes to environment-friendly electric vehicles (EV), manufacturing and finding enough customers for them, but Africa is still lagging behind in this respect.
Electric cars, which help curb greenhouse gas emissions, have been introduced in Africa, but car manufacturers admit they are yet to see a major shift from petrol- and diesel-driven cars to green cars. Clynton Yon, Product Manager of car major Toyota in South Africa, says it’s simply due to a lack of interest from the market.
“Hybrid technology is not cheap but in Europe and the US, the financial rebates buyers receive from the government [on initial purchase and also when it comes to taxes for insurance and emissions, for example congestion tax] make it a far more viable proposition. There also appears to be reluctance on the part of South Africans to adopt a greener lifestyle if it’s going to involve a higher initial financial outlay,” says Yon.
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Electric cars are still fairly expensive, and with reference to local sales, admittedly, hybrids have not achieved the kind of retail numbers they have elsewhere. The most obvious reason for this is the financial rebates offered by first-world countries are not available in South Africa, according to Yon.
“That said, Toyota has made a concerted effort to make hybrid variants more accessible. The Yaris HSD for example is the most affordable hybrid on the market,” says Yon. The Yaris HSD costs R230,000 ($21,700).
Electric engines give electric cars instant torque, creating strong and smooth acceleration. These cars first appeared in the 1880s, and were popular in the 19th and 20th centuries, until advances in combustion technology and production of cheaper petrol vehicles led to a decline in the use of electric cars.
Since 2008, a renaissance in electric vehicle manufacturing has occurred due to advances in battery and power management technology, concerns about increasing oil prices and the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
If as a continent, Africa were to catch up with markets such as Europe, a lot needs to be done to educate the consumer about the effects of global warming.
About 144,000 units of another green car entrant, the Nissan LEAF, have been sold around the world, a large percentage of those sales owing to Europe since its launch in December 2010. At the moment, the LEAF commands 33% of the EV passenger car market in Europe, it sold more than 5,600 more units in 2013 versus 2012, cementing its position as a best-selling 100% electric vehicle.
The success of the Nissan LEAF in Europe has been especially propelled by strong sales in Norway where it became the best-selling car at the end of January with 650 units.
Since its launch in South Africa in November last year, the LEAF has taken off well, according to Dudu Mwelase, General Manager of Corporate Communications at Nissan South Africa. About 20 Nissan LEAF cars were sold in the first three months, but Nissan expects to sell a 100 in the first year.
Mwelase says her company’s aim is to bring about as much EV ownership as possible.
“As mobility in Africa starts to increase, there will obviously be a move to introduce environmentally-friendly vehicles. We do not foresee a mass Nissan LEAF introduction on the continent at this stage.”
Customers see electric cars as an appendage of the ongoing endorsement of all things green. For example, Heleen Ball, one of South Africa’s first LEAF customers, says that even though she was not supportive of the idea when her husband first suggested it, the car now works very well with their green lifestyle. She uses the car two or three times a week.
Plans to bring the BMW electric models to South Africa are also in full swing. The first model, the BMW i3 is earmarked for March 2015. The i3 could have been here earlier but because demand was exceeding expectations in a number of key European markets, South Africa has had to wait.
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“To ensure an acceptable waiting period for all customers who have ordered the i3, we have decided to delay market launch in South Africa and a number of countries where the i3 is not yet on sale,” says Edward Makwana, Automotive Communications Manager of BMW, South Africa.
At this stage, these cars will only be available in South Africa.
“We currently have around 11,000 pre-orders worldwide and more than 100,000 test drive requests. Customer-demand and interest in test drives exceed current production capacity. Dealers worldwide report they could sell more BMW i3s if they had them. We are also seeing a growing interest from local customers,” says Makwana. It’s clearly a green signal for electric cars.

Category: Woman

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