Empowering young leaders

Francois van der Merwe





As part of its ongoing mission to empower, equip and transform, Erongo Marine Enterprises (EME) sponsored ten young leaders, including five students from Namibia’s leading universities, to participate in the Young Professionals Leadership Development Conference that took place in Windhoek earlier this month.

Four of the sponsored youth are interns at the company.

The aim of the two-day conference was to encourage and inspire young professionals, and help them find inspiration and gain knowledge from established leaders and from each other. This is according to event coordinator Samuel Mocumi from Benguela Training Consultants.

“We wanted to challenge each and every attending young professional to be a change agent and understand how success in leadership is underpinned by determination and emotional resilience; and make it clear that limits only exist in their minds,” Mocumi explained.

The conference included presentations by six local industry experts and one motivational speaker from South Africa, Stef du Plessis, who is a thought-leader on employee and workplace culture.

“If you are a young leader, you have energy. You bring new ideas and a fresh perspective to the table. You have a lot of potential.

At Erongo Marine Enterprises we want to make sure that we nurture young leadership potential and saw this as a golden opportunity to afford these ten individuals the opportunity to take part in such a great event,” said Dr Martha Uumati, managing director of EME.

She added this is testimony to the company’s commitment to convert its fishing rights into broad-based social upliftment, coordinated through its social development trust, the Arechanab Community Trust.

The participants sponsored by Erongo Marine Enterprises included Christine van Wyk (Nust SRC member), Kudzai Sibanda (Unam SRC president), Epaphras Angolo (IUM SRC president), Marvellous Shilongo (former Nust SRC president) and Simon Petrus, a student at the Windhoek Vocational Training Centre, whose studies is also sponsored by the company.

The Erongo Marine interns included Orlanda Kambindangolo, Tareree Kaura, Tonateni Shaketange and Joram Shifa.

Six of the ten sponsored participants were females.

“I wish to thank Erongo Marine Enterprises for affording me the meaningful experience and contributing towards my development as an individual, both on a personal and corporate level. The conference was very informative and had a major impact on my perceptions and creating a positive workspace for myself and my colleagues all around,” said Van Wyk.

Shaketange offered the following advice, which she took from the conference: “We are not separated by our differences, but by our ignorance. If you want to be a transformational leader, you have to learn.

“As a leader your behaviour and attitude influences multitudes. It is our behaviour in the workplace that creates unwritten ground rules, which are people’s perceptions that this is how we do things around here. As a leader, learn to influence others in a way that it will change their lives in a positive way.”