Rising Woman: The power of passion and purpose

Rew-Revealed Kataru is the Country Director for the Aga Khan Foundation in Tanzania. She provides strategic leadership to achieve the Foundation’s aim of improved quality of life and human dignity.

She is a woman who works to empower other women, girls and youth with her two decades of experience working with non-profit and private sector development organ across East Africa. She talks to Rising Woman on her career journey.

 How did you get to the position of ‘Country Director’ at the Aga Khan Foundation?

 When I completed my studies, I thought of how I could help girls and women improve the quality of lives - and, to start with, I did some voluntary work for two years. One of the things I chose to do was to go to community schools which was recruiting goals from marginalised communities, and I thought of giving them the opportunity to learn English to improve their speaking and written skills. I then joined the development world where I started working with communities to improve incomes and the quality of women and girls’ lives. My intention was to help the women to advance their education because when you educate a woman, she is then able to educate and improve the entire nation. It’s been tough going up the ladder because you have to demonstrate results - and to engage with others. I have enjoyed the work challenges and working in a team and that has helped me to grow to the current position I am right now. I have learnt if you don’t have the passion that drives you it will be difficult to grow up to the ladder. I would encourage people to have passion and that will be their fuel towards career growth.

Was it your dream to become a leader?

It has been my passion - and it is what brought me into leadership. I have always focused on what I want to deliver, who I want to serve and how I can help improve services for the people that I work for. That always led me towards the ladder of leadership.

You are very passionate about improving the lives of women and girls... How did that passion start?

Since I was a child, I have always been career person by loving career development. In my youth I also did a lot of literature reading and through my reading I saw quite a number of threads in terms of opportunities for men and women and I learned how culture impacted the lives of women and I thought of doing something around that area to bring change. I looked at myself and the number of opportunities I had given by parents for me to grow.

Why can’t other parents do this for their girls?

Partly, that is what influenced my perspective. And once I engaged in development, I saw a number of opportunities and see how men and boys took advantage of the opportunities and how girls and women never took advantage of the situation. How can I help women and girls to take chances that help them contribute development in the community through the available opportunities.

Did you ever receive any form of support or mentoring as you moved along?

I had informal mentors, although sometimes I never knew if they were my mentors or role models. I have learned that children and youth they learn by seeing and by doing. As we talk to people, teaching in schools is one form of mentorship. There are this say which says, actions speak louder than words this is very true. So you can speak how you want but what you do speaks louder. Looking at people and women in my life, especially my mother whom I am proud to say was someone who the community drew learning from her. She never went to higher levels of education but still in her community she was a counsellor and our home was always filled with these women who would come for advice and sharing experiences. As I grew up I came to realize my mother was a mentor despite her education background. In my places of work both men and women I have seen how they do their work. To help people grow their talents and retain the talents at work places is very important. It is therefore important to have a formal mechanism towards growing talents coaching and mentoring. Give an opportunity to face challenges and allow them to look for solutions helps them grow in the process. This is a way to help women and youth to grow.

At the Aga Khan Foundation: do you have policies in place that guide you in achieving gender equality?

Yes. The Aga Khan Foundation is very passionate about gender equality. We have a policy globally which also applies in each country. Not only a policy we also have gender focal people which are assigned who work with the staff to help deal with the better understanding into everything that we do. From the strategy, programming, recruitment and into talent management helping people to understand it applied in their lives and applied in their communities as we do our work.

Why do most companies and NGOs not invest so much in putting women in managerial positions?

Organizational and NGOs would need a strategic decision through leadership position - and it has to be driven by the leadership. It requires time and resources and mostly financial resources. For a company to achieve these it needs time and financial implications and when the company’s PR organization is not willing to cover that cost, it is then difficult for companies to achieve this. The ‘landscape’ issue is another challenge in the companies. A lot of parameters identification recruitment talent management and promotion are very male-oriented. A woman has to be very aggressive and market herself - something which comes naturally with men. They will talk about their achievements, and what they know. They will volunteer and rise up to challenges - and this starts from upbringing. Women are the opposite of men. And when the employer recruits, he always looks for people who talk about themselves - like what men do. Even if they did it as a team, they would say they did it on their own! Very few women speak about themselves - and this tends to give more chances to men than women. Parents should use the same skills to raise boys and girls. This would sharpen their skills as they grow - and be able to face challenges in the future.

What are internal factors that help women grow and become leaders?

A lot of women are care givers and holds a lot of family responsibilities and at the same time they would like to prosper in their career unlike men.

Women have responsibilities at home and as well at work place that is a lot of work. And at the same time a woman performance is being compared with that of a man who has fewer burdens from the social aspect. If we really want to more women in the top we need to see how families can support them. Equal care giving at the family levels will improve the number of women who will grow up to the ladder.

Be willing and ready to learn. And women have to leave the window or door of learning open. This will help a woman to get a lot more of team players and be able to learn new things. To be able a little bit of everything that will help your leadership skills. It is not a woman’s problem. It is a society problem. So it is for the entire society to solve this problem

Looking back, what three pieces of advice do you have for your younger self?

One of the advice is, it is okay to make mistakes even at a professional level but make sure you learn from it by picking yourself up and move on. Not making mistakes you will never learn. Build yourself confidence and self esteem sometimes it is not the external players who fails us sometimes it is us women and we held ourselves back and fail to rise to the opportunities. Family background and upbringing control and rule you. So work on the self confidence. Know yourself and understand yourself. This will help you in your life.