Worldwide Girls’s Day Interview with Chilufya Siansagu

Chilufya Siansangu is Head of Enterprise Improvement/ Advertising and Communications for EFC Zambia. Her function includes driving enterprise progress by figuring out alternatives, monitoring new markets, strategic partnerships, and constructing sustainable consumer relationships. She has a variety of duties for increasing EFC Zambia’s buyer base. She just lately attended the World Training Finance Convention, hosted by Alternative Worldwide EduFinance and was capable of share a variety of views on constructing schooling finance merchandise and purchasers.

For Worldwide Girls’s Day 2023 we spoke with Chilufya about her personal expertise of schooling and the way to create higher alternatives for educating ladies and ladies.

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY ABOUT YOUR ROLE?

What I take pleasure in is that it cuts throughout all enterprise features and likewise includes consumer relationships, onboarding new purchasers, and sustaining current ones. I take pleasure in that lots as a result of clearly in any enterprise in the event you do not handle purchasers then clearly you’re headed for closure.

It is gratifying to see small and medium companies develop and to see {that a} enterprise can really make use of different individuals who additionally take care of households and enhance their livelihoods.

THIS YEAR’S INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY HAS THE THEME ‘EMBRACE EQUITY, A WORLD FREE OF BIAS, STEREOTYPES, AND DISCRIMINATION.’ WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT?

I feel it is a good theme. At the beginning, it does seize the challenges that ladies face. It highlights the significance of recognizing and addressing the systemic limitations that stop ladies from reaching their full potential.

It emphasizes the necessity to problem current stereotypes, beliefs and attitudes in the direction of ladies – within the Zambian group, there’s a stereotype {that a} girl will not be purported to be educated, the lady is meant to are inclined to their kids and do the house responsibilities, whereas the person goes on the market to work and excel in his profession.

Nevertheless it’s not like we won’t. We’re very a lot ready, it is simply these stereotypes that we have to recover from for us to understand our full potential. I feel the battle continues, however I feel with all of the consolidated efforts, the celebration of girls. I feel we’re on the correct path and we should always not cease.

WHY DO YOU THINK IT’S IMPORTANT TO INVEST IN EDUCATION?

The schooling agenda is de facto massive for me. The purpose we’re lacking these days, I feel most younger folks, simply wish to be schooled and never educated. Training has to transcend, it has to alter conduct, it has to alter the entire being, and there should be some transformation.

I might point out that schooling is an equalizer, particularly in our communities. It’s very, crucial that we put money into schooling.

Once we put money into schooling that encompasses the schooling of girls and ladies it modifications the narrative as a result of there’s financial progress. And by investing in schooling, people can purchase expertise and data wanted to safe a greater future, and better-paying jobs. At EFC that is our core enterprise. We’re an enterprise lending establishment and with schooling, you may create higher entrepreneurs.

WHAT WAS YOUR OWN EXPERIENCE OF EDUCATION?

After I was 2.5 years, I used to be concerned in an accident, and I used to be badly burnt. When my father took me to the hospital, the docs mentioned, ‘no, this woman will not be going to make it, begin arranging for a funeral’. And you do not inform a guardian that. My father mentioned, ‘I need you to see her earlier than you begin making these conclusions as a result of I consider she’s going to be okay.’

My father was very prayerful. I began therapeutic which shocked the docs as a result of the burns had been deep. After realizing that I used to be therapeutic, they did inform my mother and father ‘Look, sure, she’s healed, however she’s going to have a studying incapacity. She wants particular schooling. She won’t be able to manage like different kids at school.’

I spent years within the hospital and my father was very decided that I used to be going to get a standard schooling. Ultimately, I began faculty and he used to inform me ‘In opposition to all odds, you are going to be good.’

Though I began my first grade a 12 months late, I grew to become so good that I skipped a grade. I used to be capable of meet up with my pals and once I completed my O-Ranges, I gained a scholarship to check for the Worldwide Baccalaureate at Hastings School in England. I used to recollect my mother and father’ assist, and I gained awards together with the perfect scholar.

Subsequent, I used to be awarded a scholarship to Princeton College in America, however I could not attend because the scholarship was solely 50%, and I could not afford the opposite 50%. So, I made a decision to self-sponsor myself in England, I did accountancy on the London Faculty of Accountancy. I used to do part-time work in Hastings in a care residence earlier than I returned residence.

I all the time encourage the ladies I work with and inform them that due to schooling, I have been capable of assist my mother and father, my household, and the folks that comply with me. It doesn’t matter what anyone says, you are able to do it in the event you consider in it, and schooling has lots to do with that.

WHY DOES IT MATTER TO EDUCATE GIRLS?

As soon as we empower ladies and assist to advertise gender equality, we’re doing extra for the financial system than we may think about. It goes past regular dwelling, it contains enhancing their well being, and careers. With out correct schooling, it is fairly troublesome to get very far in life.

There’s additionally the side of financial progress. Educated ladies usually tend to enter the workforce. After I’m collaborating in interviews, I discovered that ladies are doing a lot better at school than boys, as a result of they’re extra centered. When it comes to lowering poverty in our communities, when now we have extra educated ladies, households usually tend to profit.

WHAT CHALLENGES ARE HOLDING GIRLS BACK FROM GETTING AN EDUCATION IN ZAMBIA?

There are fairly a couple of causes which are holding again ladies from getting educated and this features a lack of entry to the correct schooling infrastructure. We now have conditions the place ladies within the village should stroll miles and miles to get to a college. Most often mother and father themselves choose to have their boys educated versus their ladies, due to the safety considerations that include lengthy distances. Many mother and father favor to have their boys be educated over their ladies, as boys are often those they assume should ‘feed the household’.

One other subject is gender-based violence. Some ladies do expertise sexual harassment, bodily violence, and verbal abuse in school which suggests it may be safer for them to remain residence.

I feel the narrative is altering now, however we want extra function fashions, extra feminine academics, extra feminine CEOS, and extra feminine docs. I feel this can be a crucial job for ladies which are already in profitable positions, to encourage these younger ladies to get a correct schooling.

WHAT CHANGES DO YOU THINK COULD HELP GIRLS IN ZAMBIA?

There are nonetheless points with sanitation services equivalent to an absence of unpolluted water. Ladies want services to have the ability to handle themselves correctly throughout their intervals.

Implementing normal insurance policies to assist ladies extra, may assist lots. There are non-governmental organizations which are very vocal about supporting ladies. They’re serving to, however I feel there’s extra to be completed on the governmental stage.

At EFC now we have monetary merchandise that may assist communities, as now we have discovered that many households can’t afford to pay exorbitant faculty charges. By these merchandise, now we have discovered that ladies can enroll in colleges and entry schooling, as we assist colleges as a monetary establishment.

Training is essential, Nelson Mandela mentioned, ‘schooling is essentially the most highly effective weapon you need to use to alter the world’.

For me, this can be a reminder that true schooling wants to alter conduct. It isn’t nearly having levels. What’s key’s what has schooling completed for you when it comes to conduct and what’s it that you simply’re capable of do higher that you simply could not do with out that schooling.