A look back at Rising Woman season 2

Dar es Salaam. After a hectic and eventful two months profiling women in leadership, the second edition of Rising Woman initiative which started on January 27, 2022 has reached the peak and closes yet again, to resume in 2023.

The Rising Woman Initiative is the brainchild of The Citizen newspaper, a Mwananchi Communications Limited (MCL) business product which established last year February 1, 2021. The aim of the initiative is to identify and profile women in managerial positions in different industries and sectors all across the country, in a bid to push the woman empowerment agenda.

This second edition has hailed plenty of success, one among these was profiling our own Lilian Timbuka who serves as both the news and special projects editor of the Mwananchi newspaper. She shared highlighted important factors on learning to work with integrity, working hard and company roles in creating equal opportunities for women to empower them to rise to the occasion.

On the opening of the second edition of the initiative, Managing Director of MCL, Bakari Machumu said that the target for this year was to reach at least 60 women whose stories are yet to be heard.

So far, the initiative has succeeded in furthering the target by reaching even more women in leadership, and compared to the maiden edition last year, that number continues to rise as more leaders of impact are identified.

Apart from the target, there were three objectives which were set for this year’s Rising Woman edition. These are:

1. Inspiring, recognizing, celebrating and promoting a culture of mentorship among women in leadership and business.

2. Bringing career women and gender equality stakeholders under one roof to find solutions together on how to help low, middle to senior level female leaders to face today’s challenges with a fortified attitude.

3. Rising Woman award sought to honour organizations that have structures such as training, policies, systems and programs in place that promote gender equality at workplaces.

Having women representation in management and decision making processes and drawing women to top positions as part of efforts to ensure that more women attain leadership positions.

So far, the second edition beat the target of 60 profiles and covered a whopping 72 profiles.

In addition to the awards, MCL organized symposiums in which brought together women to discuss matters that are related to them and how they can be empowered through different sectors.

To end this year’s edition, we decided to cherry-pick the reporter’s views about the initiative experiences and the winners from Rising Woman awards.

Anna Potinus

Digital journalist at MCL, Anna Potinus explained that one of the profiles that stood out for her was that of the CEO of the Legal Services Facility, Lulu Ng’wanakilala and the Head of Customer Experience at NMB, Abella Tarimo.

“They had interesting stories and what I learnt from them is the way they handle challenges which come at them throughout their journeys,” she said.

From them, she learns that there are certain things which need to be completed to reach their goals and aims to use the knowledge she gained from them.

For the next edition, she recommends that it is very important for the company to also think about the women who are not in the leadership and those who have a dream to achieve something certain goals. “Since this is a woman initiative we need to consider all women who are out there doing business to learn from them,” she said.

Edson Sosten

As the Brand and Projects Manager at MCL, Edson Sosten explains that the second edition helped connect women with different stakeholders and brought more societal recognition. He further added that, “after the peak of the edition, we sat with stakeholders to discuss how best to position the next Rising Woman Initiative to be able to continue to impact the society. They need to get ready for the next third edition, it is going to be epic,” he said.

Apart from profiling, the initiative had two major award categories which were the Women of the Future Award which aimed to recognise unique and impactful organisational initiatives that advance gender balance in the workplace.

The other was the Rising Woman Award which saw organisations receive awards for efforts in promoting gender equality in the workplace.

“We do this to recognise the contribution of organisations in ensuring that women are uplifted and empowered through their policies,” he explained. This year we received many requests from participants which encouraged us. In addition to those, the Women in Energy Awards were given to ten other women during Thee Women In Energy Breakfast, a symposium that brought together key players in the energy sector.

Salome Gregory

Rising Woman Initiative content coordinator, Salome Gregory said that, despite reaching the target, the initiative was on going to make sure that we get as many stories out there as we can.

“I have written a lot of profiles but the one that stood out for me was from Beatrice Johnson in Morogoro, who started as house girl and now runs an NGO to raise awareness on the rights of house-helps. She is among of the beneficiaries of Women Fund Trust, Tanzania and despite her poor educational background, she has big dream and continues to pursue it. Another one is from Lulu Ng’wanakilala, there is a lot of

Through the whole month of writing profiles for the women in leadership, Salome explains that the personal impact she gained was improved confidence and now she sees things differently and is very open to any opportunity that comes her way.

Further added that, she likes to see the Rising Woman initiative go beyond and try to look another different aspects apart from leadership. There is need to find different taste for the

Awarded organisations

The awards were to recognize organisations that promote gender equality at their workplaces and have a substantial women representation in management and decision making process.

Empress Furniture Ltd

Marketing Manager of Empress Furniture Ltd Fatema Tapya said that winning the Rising Women Award is an honour and a privilege. It has motivated us to continue to work harder for equal rights for women.

“Empress Furniture Ltd has always been an advocate for women for the past 20 years. The owner gave this business to the women of his family and said ‘I am giving you this business, let’s see what you do with it’, she said.

The awards encourage them to do better and enhance their reputation. They have signed the United Nations Women’s Empowerment Principles (UN WEPs) and have joined the Tanzania Women’s Chamber of Commerce since last year.

“We are privileged to live in Tanzania, where we have an inspiring leader in President Samia,” she explained.

TotalEnergies Marketing Tanzania

Director of Legal and Corporate Affairs of TotalEnergies Marketing, Getrude Mpangile explains that The Rising Woman Initiative has been a great platform for visibility of women success stories, skills and abilities which are vital in inspiring other women to believe that they can achieve great success.

“The platform helps us raise awareness on the importance of women participating in community development by availing those opportunities to hold leadership positions,” she said.

Kazi Yetu Ltd

Co-Founder and Managing Director at Kazi Yetu Ltd, Tahira Nizari said that they were honoured to receive the award from the Rising Woman Initiative for 2022.

“Before the company established one, one of our goal was to promote local talent as well as to create jobs, especially for women in the country,” she said upon receiving the award.

Legal and Human Rights Centre

Executive Director at Legal and Human Rights Centre (LHRC), Anna Henga said that after winning the Women of the Future award, they have received various requests from people to learn from them.

“This year we will have a lot of work to do to ensure that we uplift women and companies and ensure that gender issues are addressed in organizations. Because we are a human rights organization, we want to showcase that we are leading so other people could follow,” she said.

The success of this edition as well as the lessons learnt will, with no doubt serve once again as beaming beacons for 2023 and until then, let us continue to push for the woman’s empowerment for the sake of a sustainable tomorrow.