19 Mar 2019

Gender activists and women innovators have been implored to examine ways in which innovation could remove barriers and accelerate progress for gender equality. 

Ms Faith Motlhabani, Orapa Letlhakane and Damtshaa Mines general manager’s wife and also the patron was speaking during OLDM international women’s day in Orapa on March 16 . Ms Motlhabani said it was possible to grow as women in the corporate field, business development and entrepreneurship as well as social issues, etiquette and branding. She said women and men should be empowered and challenged to commit to making a difference on matters of gender and diversity.

The gender activist and panelist Ms Ntombi Setshwaelo implored men to indulge in more discussions at home with their partners than on sports and entertainment issues only. 

Ms Setshwaelo said women and men were created differently so that they could complement each other.

 She urged women to use their power wherever they were to make a change, saying there was need to balance roles at home, social and corporate world.

OLDM Audit Services Manager Ms Tsholofelo Bogosi, who was one of the panelists said it was essential to be aggressive to success, adding it was also crucial to be assertive as a woman and demonstrate the potential. Ms Bogosi called on engineering organisations to start at grassroots level, educating children at a younger age.

She said that would enable women to start on an equal footing, saying women were at present playing catch-up on skills that men learnt at a younger age. Debswana Head of Human Resources Ms Lebole Mokoto said the organisation funded young girls as part of Debswana sponsorship, saying the sponsorship currently stood at 33 per cent and Debswana group exco had 30 per cent of women. 

Ms Mokoto said their wish was to have the female General Manager, adding that female members of exco were in the supporting staff.

The aim she said was to have female colleagues in the core disciplines stepping up through the corporate ladder. ENDS