This brief story relates to their entrepreneurial journey from 2015, culminating in a successful application for funding in March 2020. This funding will position them strategically for growth into the next few years.

In February 2015, after years of experience in the engineering industry and working in various roles / positions for a number of engineering companies, Warren Davids registered his own company as he realised that he could create much more value in the engineering market and industry. Warren obtained his qualification in Fitting and Turning from False Bay TVET College in 2001 and his Red Seal certification from Northlink College in 2012, and is currently the Operations Director of WHD Engineering (Pty) Ltd.

Olga obtained her degree in business administration from Stellenbosch University in 2006 and worked for Absa Bank for 11 years before joining WHD Engineering (Pty) Ltd in May 2017 as Managing Director. Their business services include Precision Engineering; General Engineering; Sales and Reconditioning of industrial geared motors and Environmental Management (recently incorporated in the business).

The CFERI programme assisted a great deal to increase productivity of all their employees, including herself by motivation and continuous training and implementing the knowledge gained into the day-to-day operations of the business as well as improvement of innovation.

It assisted with a deeper understanding of her role of being a co-owner, changing management skills to leadership skills which directly impacted in boosting personal and staff morale and created a more enjoyable work environment and dynamic team. She personally gained the ability to set business goals and use the organizational skills to focus their energies to take the business to the next level.

One of the biggest challenges, Olga recounts, is  being able to overcome self-doubt; this is a necessary quality as an entrepreneur and having family and friends who knows and supports your goals through the darkest days surely motivates you on your path to business success.

“Being a female entrepreneur, especially with no engineering degree in a male dominated industry is very challenging and tough, but is an equally rewarding experience and taught me self-discovery and how to believe in myself. The only way to  gain respect from clients and suppliers is to get your hands dirty and show you’re willing to learn and do whatever it takes. As women, we need to encourage other women to follow their dreams and share our experiences so that we can learn from each other – this is how we grow personally and professionally.”

 Olga and Warren spent much time in 2019 seeking appropriate funding. In the face of many “rejections”, they persevered. Early applications were not approved but they persevered into late 2019. Finally, in March this year, they received a loan/grant.   The facility awarded is in the amount of R2.2 million of which R860k is a grant and R1.34 million loan portion. This funding will be used for the purchase of Machinery (Lathes/Milling machines and delivery vehicles), as well as an input into cashflow.

As for advice to aspiring entrepreneurs, Olga says “Concentrate on your strengths; Take risks, even if you make a mistake; Stay positive and never give up. On a personal note – have Faith in God, yourself and your capabilities”

Issued by Steve Reid: Centre for Entrepreneurship | Rapid Incubator Manager

One of 6 SA female scientists selected by the SA Academy of science, Shireen joined more than 500 undergraduates and PhD students from around the world to engage with 30 Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany.

As a result of her research into the disease of addiction within the Cape Flats communities in and around her home suburb and neighbouring areas, Shireen was awarded a Fullbright Scholarship and will be heading off soon to the University of Missouri for nine months.

“My original research was situated squarely within the context of substance abuse. My neighbourhood, like many others in the greater Cape Town, experiences high levels of substance abuse, in particular methamphetamine – and this inspired me to look at the science behind it.

“In my honours year I investigated the effects of methamphetamine on the blood-brain barrier (BBB) permeability, since the mechanism may be linked to the integrity of the BBB, which regulates the movement of ions, pathogens, and an array of harmful substances across brain capillaries, protecting the cognitive integrity of the central nervous system.

“UWC has been my stepping stone in many respects. I’m looking forward to learning more about how my research may one day be able to make a meaningful contribution to treating addiction.”

Shireen has already been published in leading scientific journals and was the first recipient of the Wyndham Prize from the Physiology Society of Southern Africa in 2014

Source: News 24, UWC, Goodthingsguy.com

A gender revolution has begun in what were exclusively male industries, led by a still-tiny vanguard of women artisans produced by South Africa’s TVET College system.

It’s pretty much a given that any schoolgirl (or schoolboy) asked to describe a  ‘boilermaker’ or ‘shipbuilder’ will not imagine anyone remotely like Lee-Anne Andrews or Candra Pedro, but this is destined to change if they have anything to do with it. And it’s not just because gender prejudice and stereotypes have no place in our democracy.

With the country experiencing an official unemployment rate of 27,6% and a youth unemployment rate of 63,4%, our economy needs double the number of artisans it currently produces annually if it is to grow to a level that provides decent work for everyone.

In Lee-Anne’s case, she enrolled at Northlink College in 2008 for the newly launched NC(V) Engineering Fabrication certificate course.

After passing many of the 21 subjects with distinction, she joined Damen Shipping as an Apprentice Boilermaker in 2011 and passed her trade test in Boilermaking in May 2013, becoming the first female boilermaker in South Africa.

Only 27 years old, Lee-Anne is a lecturer at False Bay TVET College.

With a father and brother being artisans, Bonteheuwel-born Candra began making unusual but natural choices in high school, including taking Woodwork as a subject. After matriculating at Spes Bona High in 2010, she enrolled for the N5 level National Certificate in Multi–Disciplinary Drawing Office Practice.

Soon thereafter, she saw an Armscor advert for a shipbuilding apprenticeship. She was placed in the Shipbuilding Apprenticeship Programme based at Simonstown Dockyard. After completing her Structural Steel and Plating N2 Certificate at Northlink College and six years of work to meet the work experience requirement, she took the trade test at False Bay TVET College in May 2019.

Lee-Anne says, “As the first qualified female boilermaker I felt honoured to test Candra during her Shipbuilding trade test. I admired her confident ability to perform under tremendous pressure. I’m really proud of her for setting a benchmark and being so inspiring to other young women.”

False Bay TVET College Trade Test Centre coordinator, Ndileka Ndzolo, is quick to disabuse anyone from thinking that the path female artisans choose is easy.

“The artisan environment is not easy at all. Having been a male-dominated environment historically, learning and succeeding in it requires a lot of courage, focus, determination and resilience.”

Despite this, Ms Ndzolo says there has been a substantial increase in females successfully completing trade tests, “especially in the past two years or so”, which she ascribes to the DHET’s strategy from around 2014 of publicising artisanship through national roadshows.

Candra says her male supervisors and head artisans were protective of her as the only female and the youngest apprentice in her class. Candra’s achievement no doubt had the added value of helping her class and workmates to see their trades less in terms of gender and more in terms of competence and skill.

Having blazed the trail, Lee-Anne and Candra feel more women will become artisans, as role models now exist who proved that it can be done. Says Candra, “if you can stand heights and tight spaces and getting dirty, all you need to succeed is determination, perseverance and self-belief.”

The 2018 winners for the Toughest Firefighters Alive are:
Woman: Baigum Abrahams, a 23-year-old mom from the Cape Flats
Men: Emile Conrad from the Eden District Municipality

The competition is designed to bring international standards to South Africa, improve relations between communities and emergency services and equip firefighters to deliver service excellence.

Firefighters from around the country signed up for the event, which is recognised as the most difficult firefighter competition in the world. The challenge includes an individual category as well as a relay category.

Baigum Abrahams, a 23-year-old mom from the Cape Flats has been named the toughest female firefighter in South Africa.
The mom of one had only been in the job for 13 days after graduating and trained a total of seven days, yet she reigned supreme in one of the toughest competitions for firefighters.
A proud JP Smith, Mayco member for Safety and Security, says: “Baigum scorched the competition just weeks after she graduated in July and is doing the Cape Town Fire and Rescue Service proud.”

The firefighters had to complete a number of challenges in full gear, including a hose drag, obstacle course, tower ascent and an 800 metre sprint.

The rookie firefighter stationed at Mitchells Plain Fire Station says: “The best thing was seeing how proud my son and fellow firefighters were, winning the gold was great. We couldn’t let them [other firefighters]beat us on our own turf.”

“The winner of the male competition, Emile Conrad from the Eden District Municipality, is no stranger to the podium – he has been crowned TFA SA champion three years in a row now! Congratulations!

The Toughest Firefighter Alive – South Africa has the following objectives:
* To promote a spirit of excellence in firefighters and produce firefighters who are able to compete on the international stage
* To equip firefighters with skills that enable them to perform at the peak of their abilities
* To continue to push the boundaries in delivering a better, high-quality service
* To boost firefighters’ morale whilst promote the profession through media coverage
* To promote relationship building with previously disadvantaged communities.

Firefighters are measured in terms of their fitness, endurance and skill sets and have to complete a number of challenges in full firefighting gear, including a hose drag, obstacle course, tower ascent, and an 800m  run.

“Firefighting can be a very physically demanding job and this competition asks some tough questions of the participants. It’s amazing to watch and just further cements the respect I have for those in the profession. South African firefighters are up there with the best and have proven themselves on the international stage.

Last year, a male relay team came fifth overall in the European Open in Germany and the overall female winner was a firefighter from Durban, Simangele Mbanjwa. It is anhonour to have some of these competitors showing off their skills in Cape Town this year.” – City of Cape Town’s safety and security chief, JP Smith 

Content and pics from the following sources:

IOL
Knysna Plett Herald
The Daily Voice
Cape Talk (click here to listen to the podcast)

Androgynous: Identifying and/or presenting as neither distinguishably masculine nor feminine.

Bi-gender: Someone whose gender identity encompasses both man and woman. Some may feel that one side or the other is stronger, but both sides are present.

A-gender: A term for people whose gender identity and expression does not align with man, woman, or any other gender. A similar term used by some is gender-neutral

Cis-gender: A term used to describe someone whose gender identity aligns with the sex assigned to them at birth.

Genderqueer: A term for people who reject notions of static categories of gender and embrace a fluidity of gender identity and often, though not always, sexual orientation. People who identify as genderqueer may see themselves as being both male and female, neither male nor female or as falling completely outside these categories

Transgender: An umbrella term for people whose gender identity and/or expression is different from cultural and social expectations based on the sex they were assigned at birth.

Gender fluid: A person who does not identify with a single fixed gender, and expresses a fluid or unfixed gender identity. One’s expression of identity is likely to shift and change depending on context.
Gender dysphoria: Clinically defined as significant and durational distress caused when a person’s assigned birth gender is not the same as the one with which they identify.

Have you heard of the term LGBT+? Today, the full and inclusive acronym for the collective community across the GI and SO spectrum has been expanded to LGBTQIA. That stands for Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer Intersex.

Imagine how they feel? Especially when they are young, or going through puberty, or being bullied at school or the workplace for being “different”.

More and more young people around the world are identifying “Outside the Binary” (Binary: adjective – consisting of, indicating, or involving two).

They reject the idea of male or female. Some see themselves on a scale between these two accepted norms. Or outside them completely. These people are gender non-conforming. So how do they fit into our communities, our schools, our workplaces?

The individual who doesn’t identify with their assigned gender not only faces massive personal challenges, but also has to deal with rigid, conservative attitudes. The education system takes on a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude towards gender identity, as it does toward Sexual Orientation.

The “queer” child trapped inside a society that doesn’t see their struggle with their Gender Identity or their Sexual Orientation is often pushed away from meaningful relationships with peers, teachers and sometimes even family. This exclusion, due to an outdated world view, is damaging to their development.

It is vital that we, as communities, influencers, fellow learners or colleagues, as friends or family, understand and embrace the new reality that gender identity is not either girl or boy. It is a spectrum. And it is not a choice. It is who we are at the core of our being.

It is also important that we understand the difference between Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation.

GI is how we see ourselves; it is core to who we are. SO is who we are sexually and/or emotionally attracted to, regardless of our own sense of gender identity. It’s who we want to be with, as is our constitutional right.

This Boys’ Club protects itself by consolidating power amongst its members and their peers and by reinforcing the belief that women are not welcome at this table. This practice, this entrenched system, has a defence mechanism which kicks into gear when threatened.

How does this still happen in the workplace today? Well, because male privilege is very much still part of our social fabric. In the church. In politics. In the boardroom. In the ownership and control of resources. In the home. In the bedroom.

Male privilege assumes women are weak and incapable of fulfilling any function outside the family home. Male privilege feeds on the exclusion of women from traditional male roles. Male privilege in South Africa is something women can’t really rise above until men do something about it.

These are the conversations we should be having. Not what women can do. But what men MUST do. Disempower their misbelief in their own superiority. And that’s where companies should be shifting their focus; supporting women at work by challenging men to interrogate their own sense of privilege and bigotry. Only by eliminating the sense of power and brotherhood created by toxic masculinity will women be truly inclusive in the workplace.

Here in SA, women make up more than half of the population, yet are still way behind in positions of authority. Despite the Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill calling for 50% representivity in decision-making positions, STATS SA finds that Women fill 44% of skilled posts, which includes managers, professionals and technicians.

While this figure doesn’t seem that far off the mark, it hasn’t changed since September 2002. And more alarmingly, when look at the Top 40 JSE listed companies, STATS SA found only one company had a female CEO!

Women still earn less than men

Market Research specialists Ipsos SA conducted face-to-face in the homes of rural and urban South Africans. Their sample size was a 3,598 employed people nationally across various occupations.

Their findings reveal that the monthly income was R9,222.16 for men and R6,688.80 for women. This means that SA women earn 27% less than men.

Various factors influence these statistics; not all can be attributed to discrimination in the workplace. For example, men and women have different productive characteristics, typically working in different industries with different rates of pay. Women tend to dominate the informal sector, part-time employment and domestic work – all associated with lower pay scales.

Gender Discrimination & Sexism

In homes, offices, shops and factories across South Africa, women suffer at the hands of a deeply entrenched patriarchal culture. At work, women are stereotyped. If a woman is a successful leader, making tough decisions, she is more likely to be labelled a bitch (women should be kind, gentle and nurturing). A man in a similar position will be respected for his strength as a leader.

So is there a difference between Sexism and Gender Discrimination? Yes, there is. Sexism makes assumptions based on stereotypes. “Women can’t be Firefighters” is a sexist statement. It generalizes based on gender. It also isn’t true, as there are many women who work in this field.

A statement that says “studies show that women do not have the physical strength to perform some of the tougher duties of firefighting” is not sexist as it is based in a factual reference.

Gender Discrimination is when a decision is made about a person or a situation based on gender. If you are hiring firefighters and you exempt women from applying, that is discrimination.

Many subtle forms of discrimination still exist without being addressed. Some employers expect women to do things such as answer phones, make coffees, set up meetings even if these secretarial tasks are not in their job description. These are sexist attitudes, just like constantly interrupting women in meetings while allowing male colleagues freedom to talk. “Mansplaining” is another annoying display of patriarchal behavior; when a man constantly, and unnecessarily, talks to a woman in a patronizing way explaining something she likely already knows

It’s a harsh reality that many SA men, in all fields of work, suffer from outdated attitudes about the women at their workplace. They expect women to be subservient, girly, friendly. The truth is, many men still feel threatened by strong, competent women. And that is a social construct that goes back generations.

“We need to be able to connect masculinity and femininity, so instead of seeing these as opposite constructs, shouldn’t we really see the ideal [manager]has elements of both? Right now we clearly have a hierarchy between masculinity and femininity, wherein masculinity is more highly valued. So we should focus on how we can bring these two things closer to one another in terms of value.” Dr. Leah Sheppard, Washington State University.

In the latest Werkit research conducted by Career Junction in May 2018, among 1500 working women, 65% of respondents said their were more men than women at their place of work. 89% expressed a desire to reach an executive position while 63% said promotions were not performance-related  and 59% believe men have more opportunities for advancement.

So with the massive demand for skills in STEM careers, why are so few women missing out on these prime employment opportunities?

We can blame the bias of previous generations for that. After all, boys became doctors, girls became nurses. Boys become engineers and scientists, girls married them. As sad as it seems today, this cultural nonsense has framed our current reality in many ways – and therein lies the opportunity!

Eight out of the top 10 scarce skills occupations in SA right now are STEM-related (Source: Department of Higher Education and Training) And, you are more likely to grow in a STEM career because the sector is expanding so fast and is not about to slow down anytime soon.

By 2020, almost 80% of all jobs will require STEM skills according to a recent STEM report.

But best of all girls, a recent study from Columbia University shows that: Women are better learners, better communicators and better at handling interview stress! So the jobs yours if you want it!

“It was amazing. I felt like I was in control, do you understand?” she says, spinning round in excitement. Taking control of an aircraft was something the teenager from Soweto had dreamed of since she was little.

She stands on the runway at Grand Central Airport and whoops with pure joy; the words of delight streaming out of her.

“Driving Zulu Sierra Papa Whiskey Whiskey (her aircraft’s call-sign) was so amazing. It was so amazing!”

The woman behind this euphoria is Refilwe Ledwaba, South Africa’s first black woman to have flown for the South African Police Service.

Refilwe Ledwaba has set up a camp and programmes for young people interested in aviation and science as a career choice

Besides being the country’s first black female helicopter pilot, Refilwe is also the founder of the Girl Fly Programme in Africa Foundation (GFPA) a non-profit organisation empowering young women to take up science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) subjects.

Every year she organises a flying camp for girls where they learn about robotics, coding and aviation. And then each of them gets a free flying lesson at some point during the year.

“I want the girls to be successful,” she says, dressed in her pilot’s uniform, watching the teenagers take it in turns to fly. “Not necessarily to choose to become pilots but to become confident young women who can contribute to society, our economy and give back to our communities.”

Her passion for flying is contagious, and it’s that which is driving her to work on her dream of developing South Africa’s next generation of female aviation experts and Africa’s future leaders in science.

This article was adapted from the Original BBC Innovators article written by By Dhruti Shah and Tamasin Ford, Magaliesburg, South Africa

Full story: https://bbc.in/2NrrOPj
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