The Sunday Mail
Wendy Nyakurerwa: Assistant Editor
Prominent Namibian entrepreneur Ms Twapewa Kadhikwa has called on Zimbabweans to create opportunities out of the challenges they encounter in their daily lives, instead of playing victims.The enterprising 35-year-old Windhoek-based co-owner of the Kadhikwa Group of Companies – who has been self-employed her entire adult life – said problems were indications of opportunities.“Everywhere there is a problem is a fertile breeding ground for a solution,” she said while addressing delegates at the second edition of the NamZim Newspapers Empowering and Mentoring Women in Leadership Conference in Harare on Friday. The first edition of the conference was held in Namibia in 2015.
“We are on a continent that has so many challenges, that means we have so many opportunities. We don’t have problems, we have opportunities,” she said.
Ms Kadhikwa said Africans should ask themselves why foreigners saw opportunities that inhabitants of the continent did not.
“When I hear that bread runs out at 2pm in Harare, l will set-up a bakery. The Chinese people hear you saying that in our country we don’t have schools, we don’t have college jobs, we don’t have training facilities, we don’t have infrastructure.
“While you are saying you have problems, in the mind of the Chinese, he hears opportunity for a school, opportunity for construction,” said Ms Kadhikwa.
The Women in Leadership Conference was organised by The Southern Times, a company owned by NamZim, which is itself a joint venture between Zimbabwe Newspapers (1980) Limited and New Era Publications Corporation of Namibia.
Ms Twapewa was one of the several motivational speakers at the event who took time to mentor delegates at a conference officially opened by First Lady Amai Grace Mugabe.
Other speakers were Gerry Eldson Rantseli (South Africa), Tafuna Mumba-Phiri (Zambia), Seodi White (Malawi), Nancy Sumari (Tanzania), and Chipo Mutasa and Edna Mukurazhizha (both Zimbabwe).
The conference was a platform for women to share their business experiences and motivate each other.
