The Sunday Mail
Features Correspondent
The name Chipembere means “rhinoceros” in Shona, one of Zimbabwe’s official languages. A rhinoceros is one of the world’s rare animal species. While these animals are giants and counted among Africa’s Big Five species, they are also acknowledged as patient, caring and protective.
It is fitting that a rare example of a combination of learning facilitation, career coaching and a focus on holistic life wellness should be led by a person who goes by that name.
Ennie Chipembere stands out in a crowd for her bright smile, positive personality and flowing dreadlocks. When you speak to her, she stands out even more with her razor-sharp intellect and big heart. She has taken young people, leaders, executives and anyone who interacts with her or her work under her experienced care.
Ennie, in her own words, is a Career Coach, Learning Expert, Life Wellness Coach and a Global Development Worker.
She packs a lot of activities into her day, which always leaves people wondering how she does it. She laughs it off and says it’s about having a clear vision, life purpose and values that are aligned to what you do in your personal life, paid and unpaid work.
“My vision is to impact Africa and anyone who encounters me and my work, for them to value learning, life wellness and proactive career management as a means of living meaningfully and achieving their goals. I also want to be remembered as having lived a meaningful, authentic and purpose-driven life; guided by the values of hard work, honesty, a belief in people and lifelong learning.”
It could all have been so different for her if she had stayed “in the box” after her time at the University of Zimbabwe.
“In Zimbabwe, if you did a Bachelor of Arts Degree, as I did in 1997-2000 at the University of Zimbabwe, you were destined to be a teacher or follow a non-linear career path. The country had very limited professional career development services. So, when I graduated in 2000, I had no access to career guidance, and I struggled to find a career home.
“Being a deeply spiritual person, I grappled with what my life purpose was and what would be meaningful for me to do. These four issues made me land on career development outreach work as an aspiration for the future (vision) so that no one else needed to go through the struggle I went through. I saw it as the critical work that needed to be done in my country and on the African continent, and it still is. I had a clear mental picture of the institute and services that would be helpful to me. That is how I developed the first draft of my personal vision in 2000.”
A focus on proactive career development and management has come a long way from the career guidance days. This was when professionals or the school alumni would come to a school, address the students and leave, often leaving the students inspired, but without the tools to find their career path or decide what is best for them to study. Today, it is a major part of every student and professional’s life path, continually being shepherded by experts like Ennie.
After her BA Honours degree, Ennie began a journey that has taken her halfway across the world (Canada) and multiple time zones as she built her profile and strengthened her capacity to deliver in a world that is changing rapidly and irreversibly. She charted a course into development work due to her visionary leadership that looked beyond her qualifications and into her skill set.
“I had been working for Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS) Foundation for a year, from 2002, with no development sector qualification. I realised that without the proper knowledge and skills for the sector, I would struggle to progress and reach my goal of working globally in development
“ I looked for scholarship opportunities using my doctoral student status with the University of Zimbabwe and an almost complete doctoral thesis as leverage. I also negotiated with my employer for a one-year unpaid leave of absence with a commitment to return and work for a year to share the knowledge and skills gained. This was unheard of in the KAS Foundations, but my Resident Representative, Anton Boesl, agreed as he saw value in me. After all, he had picked a Bachelor of Arts in Economic History recent graduate based on transferable skills learnt mostly from unpaid voluntary work and soft skills that come with an Arts degree.”
In 2003, she went to Canada to do her Master’s degree in International Development Studies.
“With a draft vision and purpose in mind, I organised and planned my life around a vision I had back then of setting up Career Services and a Living with Purpose Institute (LWPI) to serve the people of Zimbabwe and the African continent. For example, my education choices such as going to Canada’s Dalhousie University for a Master’s in International Development in 2003-2004 and not anywhere else, were based on the availability of a career development sector that I could learn from.
“It was a good and strategic decision. In Canada, I invested in my vision despite limited resources and a mother and three siblings who relied on me for food, clothes, medication and school fees. I still have and I am now using strategy documents, career development programme tools, templates and books that I bought while in Canada as a contribution to LWPI in 2004.
After Canada, life took me on a journey of developing my three other career pathways — Learning Expert, Holistic Life Wellness Coach and Global Development Worker. It, therefore, took me another 15 years before I returned to the now more refined Career Development Professional focus. My lesson here is — “fulfilling your vision and passion may be delayed, but it never dies!”
By the time she completed her programme in Canada, the flow of skills was from Zimbabwe outward, but she went against the flow.
“I could have stayed in Canada as Zimbabwe was already going through an economic and political crisis in 2004, but I returned home. I recall telling my mother that development work does not happen in Canada, but in the Global South. The people I want to serve and the work I want to do is relevant if I am closer to Zimbabwe and Africa. So, I returned home to my mother’s chagrin. What she did not know (may her soul continue to be proud of me and be at peace) was that I had factored this return when I planned to go and study abroad in 2003.”
Ennie threw herself into development work with a passion. Ever unconventional, the way she exited the organisation she was working for is an interesting tale of self-confidence and the power of building strong networks.
“At the end of 2005, because of personal pressures of looking after three siblings after mum passed on, I put out an e-mail to all the people in my network that I was ready to move. It paid off. One of my network members alerted me to an opportunity with ActionAid International, connected me to the hiring manager and I was asked to apply.
“It was such a huge leap from working in a tiny office in Zimbabwe, to a global arena that I had never worked in. My interview strategy, therefore, focused on packaging my transferable skills through career stories and the STAR technique to demonstrate via a career portfolio which I submitted to the panel, so they could see that I could take on this global role. It worked!
By January 2006, I had secured my first role at ActionAid International as their International Women’s Rights Technical Advisor. My role was what my master’s thesis had covered. It was to strengthen the organisational capacity of the 46 countries in the federation to integrate gender analysis capacity and women’s rights in programmes, staff capacity and organisational systems and culture. It was a major mandate, but in six years it was done.”
Her path has had its down moments.
“The past is usually a rosy narrative. I do not want people to think I did not have career disappointments or missteps. This is the reason I am a Career Development Practitioner and Coach, to help people minimise missteps and successfully navigate career transitions.
One major career disappointment I had happened when I was focused on transitioning my career in ActionAid from an individual contributing Technical Advisor role to a manager and eventually a senior leadership level role. I had done deep work in the organisation because by the time I finished six years, I had done one to two weeks of field in-country assignments in 35 ActionAid countries on women’s rights capacity development and programme design. I felt I had to transition.
So, from 2008, I was applying internally for anything that was management, senior in title and responsibility. I, unfortunately, had lost my spiritual and life purpose compass as guides in this period and relied on external motivation and influences.
In 2009, I was asked to apply for Country Director position with my employer. I interviewed well up to the last two candidates, but did not secure the job. I felt dejected, but I had to go back to the drawing board. I asked myself if managing a country, dealing with fund-raising and a difficult context was what I really loved to do, saw as aligned to my life purpose and my core skills? The answer was No!”
“Sunny Hanson’s Integrated Life Planning Framework provides tips for safely navigating a similarly challenging time in the future. The four career transition tips are: ensure the opportunity is aligned to your life purpose; ensure it is meaningful work that needs doing and is valued; ensure it considers your family situation and negotiate work demands and relationship needs in the family space; and focus on holistic wellness, including spirituality
Ennie is pleased to work within an organisation that has helped her to flourish.
“My career journey inside and outside ActionAid has allowed me to live the life purpose alignment that I envisioned 20 years ago as a rose-tinted dreamer doing a then denigrated Bachelor of Arts in Economic History degree at the University of Zimbabwe. The said career alignment and vision is also expressed outside my paid employment space, in my social contribution work as a Career Coach, wellness advocate and Learning Facilitator to thousands of mainly young people since 2006 when I left Zimbabwe.
This was and still is via a lean Ennie’s Gift of Time and Skills model. From 2006 to 2015 I annually partnered with three youth organisations gifting time using 10 days of my annul leave. I was gifting the skills/expertise areas I was using in ActionAid to their set programmes on leadership development, learning programmes design, organisational capacity strengthening work and I provided life and career coaching. This was and remains part of my life’s work and contribution to Zimbabwe and Africa.”
Digital media has changed the reach of coaches dramatically. Daily, Ennie shares career information, learning tools and motivational material with thousands of people e.g. on Twitter she uses the hashtag “#AskEnnie” on @EnnieChipembere handle to do some free e-coaching.
“I did this social contribution work in-person in Zimbabwe and other Southern Africa countries for 10 years before catching up with the digital age in 2016. In January 2016, pushed by young people and my changed family status, I set up an Ennie Career Coach Facebook page and five WhatsApp Groups. These became cost-effective, accessible, and work-life harmony conscious strategies or vehicles that allowed my work to reach more people. I began to use an e-coaching approach, guided by the learning ecosystem model, which allowed for sustained coaching accompaniment for behaviour change in the flow of life.
“From January 2019, I shifted gears and intensely focused on career development marking my 10th anniversary of being a coach and Ennie’s Gift of Time and Skills work. I currently write and share career trends and holistic life wellness self-coaching guides and blogs via www.ennielifecoach.com. I post daily on all my social media platforms motivational quotes and career tips to inspire proactive career management, lifelong learning and holistic life wellness.
“I also curate and share career information and learning resources, as well as facilitate two weekly webinars. On Thursdays I host a Career Trends and Wellness Webinar, which is more about future proofing yourself, and on Saturday I host via Facebook live and Zoom, a more practical e-coaching Career Advice webinar. I have done 42 of these in 2019 alone, which was a huge learning curve for me, as I prefer smaller group settings behind the scenes.”
The future is bright for this goal chasing social leader.
“My vision, life purpose and values stated in this blog’s opening paragraph are the life anchors that define my career direction, identity, decisions and actions. For me, it remains the convergence of four primary elements: passion (what I love), vocation (what I am good at), mission (what the world or society needs) and profession (what I can get paid for). This work-life purpose alignment is what I have sought and worked to have since 2000. It is my intrinsic motivator and driver in life, the reason I get up in the morning, and do what I do and the compass for making life decisions that influence my behaviour, resource investments and choices.
“I continue to invest in my vision and purpose by building my muscles in learning and coaching expertise annually. For example, I am currently on a Certificate Course with eCornell University on Design Thinking, which is the latest trend in learning or product user experience design. In 2019 I completed a rigorous 250 hours Certificate Programme with Life Strategies Limited, which is affiliated with Yorkshire University in Canada, to become a certified Career Management Professional and Career Development Practitioner. This is a major milestone for my year 2000 vision of setting up career services in Zimbabwe and Africa. Delayed, but not dead.
“I already have the sweet spot of living my life purpose — so if my employer will continue to have me, and I have alignment with them, I remain just as committed as I was when I joined in March 2006. In my personal capacity, I now have a team that supports the ever-expanding work of the 20-year vision of setting up career services and helping people live with purpose in Zimbabwe and the continent. This has crystallised into Ennie Career Coach work. I remain committed to the career development outreach work that I started in 2006 as a way of giving back to my country and the continent when I left for the diaspora.”
Rare, but not endangered, unlike the gentle giant that her surname comes from. She has chosen to spread a legacy of excellence and steer young people, corporate leaders and anyone who sees value in her work from a lack of career or life strategy to.
To get in touch with Ennie, follow and engage with her work, you can find her on these online spaces:
Twitter: @EnnieChipembere
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EnnieCareerCoach/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/ennie-chipembere-chikwema
E-mail: [email protected]
