Shadya: Self initiative crucial for women to make the grade

Dar es Salaam. Development in every aspect is every one’s desire,but not many accomplish their dreams due to a myriad of challenges, including lack of self-consciousness and self initiative.

The majority of women have all it takes to do wonders in various areas, but unfortunately, they either lack confidence or do not value their beliefs and purpose.

Ability to have a clearer understanding of what they crave for in life simplifies decision making.

In that regard, women need to have the ability to be resourceful and work without always being directed what to do.

Geita Gold Mining Limited (GGML) environment officer Shadya Jamali tells season 2 of Mwananchi Communications Limited’s Rising Woman Initiative that women need to have the self-initiative and personal growth to move forward.

She says there is no need to wait for an organisation to help instead of pushing oneself first to achieve goals.

Shadya is a young woman, a wife, a mother and an environment engineer who knows her values and key roles in her business.

She is among the few women who are in the mining sector and because of that she is always stronger as a woman and ensures that her goals are accomplished.

Shadya is a bachelor’s degree holder in Environment Engineering from Ardhi University from 2013 to 2017. She participated as a special crew for combating cholera in the northern zone at the Pangani water basin.

She was the best performing third year student in the subject of Epidemiology, which involves environmental health, risks and diseases.

She joined GGML as a safety intern, later one employed as safety Administrator and to date she is the environmental officer at the mining company.

Her passion for pursuing environment engineering started when she was appointed to take care of the school garden.

“My passion started back in school days where I was appointed to take care of the school garden and the environment in general,” she says.

Shadya also remembers in 2012 when reading a newspaper, she found the national environmental policy and read it thoroughly.

That made her vow that one day she would be able to take care and manage the rules and regulations of the policy.

According to her, for a woman to develop leadership skills, first they must understand that a leader is someone who is born with traits, but sometimes a leader can be nurtured.

“Since I was young, I used to lead others and organise them in a good way, from there I had a chance to start learning leadership. The environment also forced me to be a leader that’s why I am here as a leader at GGM,” she said.

Moreover, she said self-reliance for women is the key to developing leadership skills, saying “it doesn’t matter if you need someone to push you. Women need to show that they can do it.”

A good leader always needs to be able to influence others, despite being 28 years old she manages to influence others because she does not always take advantage of others and always has empathy.

Responding to the question of why there are fewer women engineers in the country and why they do not step up to try, she answers by saying that it is an issue of culture.

“Nowadays women pursue studies that are seen as difficult, but women have all it takes to do more than what men do.,” says Shadya.

According to Shadya, GGML creates the best friendly environment for her to manage her work time and family.

“My bosses created a friendly environment for me to work and go home to take care of my four-month baby who always needs me,” she explains. It is said that having women at the top management in any organisation brings a lot of achievement.

This can create more room for people to feel at home because of bringing the family care style on it.

Explaining her opinion of the benefit of having a woman as a leader in an organisation, she believes that women bring more socialisation and interaction, through that it brings more opportunities in the organisation.

“The way you collaborate with other people helps boost socialisation within the organisation. Women are born with influence,” says Shadya

She says most women leaders are born with empathy because they can take a problem and challenge it into different styles.

Sometimes it brings smooth walking experience in the organization because of how women are able to handle all the hard work, despite the challenge but they are able to make sure everything goes as planned.

According to Shadya, she explains that, for women to be able to reach the top management and become leaders in any organization, they need to believe in themselves that they can do anything.

“Imagine in the mining sector we have 11 percent of women working. So, to be able to shine we need visibility, and that visibility comes with self-confidence,” she says.

She also added that women need to learn from people who are already into leadership positions. Those people who are in top management can be the only people who are mentors, they can teach anything which other women don’t know about.

Self-initiative is also the one important thing women need to have, if you do your work and plan yourself into the future where you want to be in the next few years, it is best to always make yourself ready without waiting for the company to work on your behalf to be in a leadership position.