Page 5 - Winning Women 2017

BWASA 5

HONOURING WOMEN

WITH NO FILTER
WITH NO FILTER

MONDLI MAKHANYA This is evidenced by the profile of Fortunately there are many Epainette
Editor in chief: City Press the Businesswomen’s Association, whose Mbekis in our midst; women who do
membership straddles the breadth of not know the concept of giving up,
ore often than not we owe our the economy and stretches across the even in the most hostile
achievements and successes – value chain. While it is true that there conditions. They are speaking loudly
Mhowever modest or is a way to go before we can say we and achieving highly. We honour these
extraordinary – to a woman. A have an excellent story to tell, the women with no filter.
grandmother, a spouse or a mentor strides that women have made are
who played a key role in our lives. exciting.
It is often a woman who toiled What is most encouraging is the
selflessly, performing tasks for which general recognition in business, the
little gratitude is received or even state and civil society that the battle
expected. Sometimes this woman is not against gender-based inequality in the
in our immediate midst but serves as economy must be prioritised and that
an inspiration despite the distance. it’s everyone’s responsibility to dislodge
One such woman is Epainette Mbeki, the boulders in front of women.
who played the roles of mother to
entrepreneur/intellectual Moeletsi
Mbeki and former president Thabo
Mbeki, and wife to Rivonia trialist
Govan Mbeki.
In her life and in death MaMbeki has
been recognised in relation to the
illustrious men in her life, and her own
mammoth contribution has passed
largely unheralded. Yet she was much
more than a family matriarch and the
woman who “kept the home fires
burning” while the Mbeki men were in
prison or exile.
She was a fierce and determined
businesswoman, sustaining a trading
enterprise in the rural Eastern Cape for
decades. She operated under extremely
difficult conditions – the community
was poor, she had little in the way of a
support structure and she was
constantly harassed by the security
police. Yet this woman kept going.
MaMbeki established community
projects and turned peasants with scant
skills into economically active citizens.
The economic base she created around
the rural periphery of Idutywa may
have been basic but it made material
difference in the lives of the people.
The nothing-is-too-big-to-accomplish
spirit of this tireless woman inspired
young and old to believe that they
need not be victims of an unfair
system or just dependants of a
welfare state.
When asked by a journalist
what her shop’s trading hours
were, her swift reply was: “Hours?
We open the shop as soon as
money is available. When it is too
dark to see money in your hand, it
is time to stop work for the day.”
The past 23 years have seen female
leaders taking centre stage in the
evolution of the economy. Be it mining,
ICT, agriculture, financial services or
construction, women have punched and
smashed many a stubborn glass ceiling. PHOTO: PHELOKAZI MBUDE