Can-do mentality a golden leap of faith in oneself

Dar es Salaam. One of the famous Idioms is ‘there is light at the end of the tunnel´ which means that despite all the stones life may throw at you, it gets better. One of the people who has lived to tell a tale of this idiom is Ms Jackline Silaa, a legal adviser at the Songas Limited.

Before her career kicked off, Ms Silaa felt like misfortune was her friend, but little did she know that no such situation lasts forever.

According to Ms Silaa, her career began from the time she was in school undertaking law studies because all experiences she gained in that time are what have made and pushed her where she currently is.

“My very first job was tutoring for one year at an institution called Refugees and Hope International in Uganda, which served refugees from Uganda, Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea. It was a life changing career that has left me with many lessons, one of them is that vulnerability does stand for being weak, it reflects strength in a person,” she recalls.

Ms Silaa afterward moved back to Tanzania and did her law school, then started an intern at Clyde and Co, a law firm based in Dar es Salaam where she worked for a year before interning at ATZ Law Chambers which is now called ‘Anjarwalla and Khanna’.

In 2015, she started ascending the ranks to the associate position.

In that same position, Ms Silaa worked in Tanzania, before relocating to Nairobi for a year in the same company.

“They say no pain, no gain and this saying applies to both careers and life whereas at some point, you are likely to go a difficult phase that will call for your strength. For me, it was during the times I was working at ATZ Law Chambers whereas like many organisations, the corona pandemic forced it to cut down the number of employees so that it could survive. I was one of the retrenched people. It was the most difficult time of my life,” she explains. Of the things that Ms Silaa is proud of is the connection and support system that she built during her career journey, brick by brick.

“In spite of how dark those times were, my support system did not let me down. Their presence reminded me of my strength. In fact, it was through a tap on the shoulder by a former colleague named Maggie who made me know of an opening at Songas. I remember questioning my abilities, but I was always reminded that my career abilities outshines the fear I had built in me,” she says.

She appraises mentorship as she hints that it was one of the relationship that got her to understand working spaces and what it is like for women.

“One of my mentors once told me that this is a man’s world and to thrive and survive in it, you need extra skin. This made me think of how I would want to navigate that kind of a world in a way that I would advance in my career,” Ms Silaa says.

As she addresses gender inequality, Ms Silaa explains that the lack of gender diversity in Tanzania goes hand in hand with other African countries and in the world at large where women are not part of the decision making circles.

“We have grown in societies where men are the breadwinners of households, they are the ones that work. This has for the longest time played a big role in influencing certain work spaces to be male dominated. Women also limits themselves due to the self-doubt that they do not belong in those particular spaces, this has overtime made gender inequality to grow thicker by the day,” she details.

Ms Silaa says that it is due to this, many women shy away from occupying different leadership roles due to expectations that those titles belong to men and only men.

She avers that “as the society, we should altogether fight for gender diversity because it is about time women are given seats at decision making tables because circumstances have changed and the old traditions that have affected women should be broken. We should also change our mindset. We should wire our minds to perceive and treat the girl child the same way the boy child is treated,”

“For a long time, our mindset was set to look at a girl child as incapable of delivering compared to a boy child, a perception that should change now,” Ms Silaa explains further.

She emphasises on the importance of conducting meaningful discussions that surround gender diversity in a manner that enhance many people to grasp the meanings of the topics.

“Advocating gender diversity has to start from the grass roots level; family. How you raise your children matters a lot, both girls and boys because as they grow, their perception and understanding on gender diversity is very important,” Ms Silaa explains.

According to her, energy was one of the male dominated development sectors with a very low number of women representatives in top leadership positions.

“I am happy and privileged to be one of the women in the energy sector pulling other women to take part in the so called male dominated space.

With Songas Limited, I am working with a team that advocates for gender diversity at work. We believe that gender inclusion plays a big role in development in a particular organization, an evident case at Songas,” says Ms Silaa.

She stresses that it is about time women develop or mold a can do mentality that will push them towards self-betterment.

“One of the many career advices that is usually given by the Songas managing director, Mr Anael Samuel is ‘Just do it’. Whatever idea pops up in your head that you believe will take your career miles ahead, pursue it- just do it,” advises Ms Silaa.