You ask how I feel to be the first female president in southern Africa? It's heavy for me. Heavy in the sense that I feel that I'm carrying this heavy load on behalf of all women.
Interpretation
Joyce Banda expresses the weight of responsibility she feels as the first female president for all women in southern Africa.
In this quote, Joyce Banda conveys her deep awareness of the historical significance of her role as the first female president of southern Africa. She recognizes that her position is not just a personal achievement, but a symbolic representation of the struggles and aspirations of women in her region. The 'heavy load' she refers to signifies the collective hopes, challenges, and expectations of women who look to her leadership as a source of inspiration and change.
In practice
This quote can be shared at women's empowerment events to inspire female leaders.
When I gave birth to my fourth child, I suffered from post partum hemorrhaging. I almost lost my life. I was lucky to be under the care of trained health care personnel. I started wondering then what was happening to women in rural villages.
I sat down in 1989 and I made up my mind at that point that I was going to spend the rest of my life assisting women and youth to gain social and political empowerment through business and education. I convinced myself economic empowerment of women was going to be key, especially in a country like this where most women didn't go to school.
I convinced myself economic empowerment of women was going to be key, especially in a country like this where most women didn't go to school.
My father once told me when I was a young girl that I was destined to do great things. His belief in my abilities and ambition is rooted deeply in the spirit of Malawians; resilient and determined for a better Malawi and a better Africa.
An African woman carries heavy loads anyway. That's how we are trained; we are brought up that nothing is unbearable. I use that now, positively. I use that now to have the thick skin that I have, and not fear, and move forward, and push; and push forward.
It is only when a woman is economically empowered that she can negotiate at household level with her husband about the number of children that body of hers can have.
I try to find, celebrate and teach leaders how to build platforms that will inspire others.
An alliance is like a chain. It is not made stronger by adding weak links to it. A great power like the United States gains no advantage and it loses prestige by offering, indeed peddling, its alliances to all and sundry. An alliance should be hard diplomatic currency, valuable and hard to get, and not inflationary paper from the mimeograph machine in the State Department.
As we mourn President Mandela’s passing we must ask ourselves the fundamental question - what shall we do to respond to the tasks of building a democratic, non-racial, non-sexist and prosperous South Africa, a people-centred society free of hunger, poverty, disease and inequality, as well as Africa’s renaissance, to whose attainment President Nelson Mandela dedicated his whole life?
You think that the heads of state only have serious conversations, but they actually often begin really with the weather or, 'I really like your tie.'
The speed of the boss is the speed of the team.
Leadership is happening, but it's not coming from the leaders of the old institutions. Everywhere you look, you see these extraordinary, sparkling new initiatives that are under way.
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