DBSA high tea honoured women from all walks of life
A.U.G.U.S.T is an anagram for authentic, unphased, gracious, unique, strong and tenacious
To end off the month of August, the Gender Mainstreaming Committee of the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) hosted a Women’s Month roundtable, celebrating the unsung heroes of the organisation. These women have overcome a variety of immense challenges both in their personal and professional lives, and stand as examples of resilience and success in the community.
The DBSA is focused on promoting economic growth and regional integration for sustainable development across the country and the region and has been a government-owned development finance institution since 1983.
Ladies in colourful, floral outfits enjoyed the high tea morning and had their makeup done and photos taken. It was a joyous and upbeat event, where hard-working women got the chance to sit back and be celebrated.
One such successful woman is emerging fintech entrepreneur Tebogo Mogale, who applied for funding from the DBSA. Her digital platform, KUPI, allows users to send and receive money in rural areas via a mobile virtual banking platform and payment interface. It is powered by Khumo Katlego Fintech and works on feature phones to enable access to users who do not own smartphones or gadgets.
Mogale said of being an entrepreneur: “It’s a very lonely journey. It’s very uncomfortable, it’s exhausting for both men and women. I am so inspired in our country by so many women.”
The DBSA’S event’s theme “She is A.U.G.U.S.T” embodied this, as an anagram for the adjectives authentic, unphased, gracious, unique, strong and tenacious.
Thembisile Khoza, Gender Mainstreaming and Stakeholder Management Programme Manager at the DBSA, said: “Ladies, we celebrate you today because we believe that you are rock solid. DBSA stands because there are women who have been behind the work as engines of what we do.”
Khosa reminded those present that the current freedoms of women in the country in part rely on the sacrifices of the 20 000 women who marched to the Union Buildings in 1956 to protest the carrying of passbooks.
“I think we just need to be thankful for these women who took it upon themselves to transform the lives of all South Africans, not just women, but we are here because they took action and they decided, ‘I’m gonna do something and be counted’. We are here to basically say, let’s be those women as well.”
Zodwa Mbele, the DBSA’S Group Executive for Transacting, affirmed the need to highlight these conversations and make them applicable to the workplace, as women still experience these spaces differently than men.
“You know, it’s almost like the workplace was created for a certain type of people to thrive and you, as a woman, need to find a way to fix yourself so that you can fit in,” she said. “So the systems, the blueprint, the policies are just inherently made to make certain people thrive better than others.”
Mbele explained that women should not need to feel like they need to fix or change themselves to be able to participate in the economy fully and be represented. She warned that this needs to be seen through practical on-the-ground outcomes at all levels, such as procurement and recruitment. It needs to go beyond tokenism, such as mere gender diversity on executive boards.
“Being an executive does not mean you have achieved, the work begins right there as the boardroom battle rages on. You must challenge the stereotypes in the boardroom and ask the unpopular questions.”
While Mbele pushes for increased female presence in the boardroom, she also said that it should not be hard strategic work to put women into positions, but that this should happen naturally and on merit.
Events such as the DBSA Women’s Month roundtable serve as an opportunity to highlight this ongoing work and normalise the resilience of women across the banking and development sectors, and beyond.