“ Laborare Vinci”  -we work to succeed

which means “we work to succeed

Rt. Hon. Joyce H. Banda, is the Vice President of Malawi, comes from Malemia village in Zomba, southern Malawi.

Rt Hon Joyce Banda has established a number of organizations such as the National Association of Business Women (NABW), Hunger Project, Young Emerging Leaders Network and the Joyce Banda Foundation. Her mission in life is to help women and the youth to gain social and political empowerment through business and education.

RT. Hon. Joyce Banda is  a widely celebrated female activist who in her lifetime has achieved a variety of great things aimed at further developing the Malawian woman. As founder of the Joyce Banda Foundation (JBF), a prestigious group of schools comprising a primary and girls’ secondary schools, aimed at promoting the education and development of Malawian girls, (Statistically, 70 percent of female university students are selected from single sex secondary schools.) She has played more than her part in ensuring girl children are given equal and/or better opportunities for them to make not just another statistic but be women of pride and charisma, talent and strength and perhaps, like her, leaders and developers of our species as well as our nation.

The Vice President individually, is a force to be reckoned with. She has proved herself worthy, starting out as a secretary and becoming frustrated by the stigma and suppression, she stepped out to be something better, something bigger than what her gender would otherwise have doomed her to.

She founded the National Association for Business Women (NABW), an organization aimed at giving women access to credible training, information, markets and technology which to present date remains amongst the most successful organizations in our land.

Up to sixty percent of Malawian woman live in rural areas and of those, thanks to the help of NABW and the strength and determination of one woman with a dream and initiative, over 15,000 women nationwide have been mobilized and over 12,000 trained to run their own businesses, so far costing an impressive US$2,000,000 in loans for that purpose.

It is both rare and admirable and downright heroic to take a stand, but it is very near saintly to be able to stand up and take action not just for oneself but for those who you think might be suffering as a result of similar pressures to what you went through.

Joyce Banda not only has a story, but a legacy to go with it. And for those, to whom she has not been of financial or physical help, she remains an institution and an inspiration.

Most Malawians look to her in awe, or try to catch glimpses of her as she speeds through the streets occasionally in her convoy of government Hummers. Not to see what she’s wearing or who she’s talking to, but to understand how one woman can really mean so much to so many and yet still carry on excelling in her own capacity. Who amongst us [women] doesn’t want to be her? This is a woman who didn’t make it by sleeping her way to the top. She did it with all grace and decency intact. Who among us doesn’t wish she could just sit down and have a chat with us, maybe teach us a few things? Most of us fall nothing short of admiration and respect, awe and fascination towards her, and those of us that don’t, well that can only be deducted as envy. For who can fault someone who has not just helped her self but pioneered a generation? What drives such a woman?

Lord only knows and I, for one, wish one day I will have the honour of being in her presence because like many aspiring female leaders of tomorrow (and that seems to be drawing closer by the minute), role models don’t come any closer to one’s doorstep yet excel any further beyond the limits of the horizons within our borders. And to think that in spite of it all she continues in her selfless efforts to lift us all onto the platform that she single-handedly has laid foundations for and built on… touching the lives of almost all of us along the way.

They say the ultimate mark of greatness is when everything before you is obsolete and everything after you bears your mark…But to carry that much weight and still maintain an air of grace and femininity purely as a result of hard work, common sense and determination... now that, my friends, can only be described as reverence! Written by Timvemag