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Young leaders groomed in professional leadership development, courtesy of Erongo Marine

Young leaders groomed in professional leadership development, courtesy of Erongo Marine

An aspiring group of young people with proven leadership potential was supported by a Walvis Bay fishing company to attend and participate in the Young Professional Leadership Development Conference hosted in Windhoek earlier in September.

Erongo Marine Enterprises, a company operating in the midwater segment of the fishing spectrum, selected Christene van Wyk, Kudzai Sibanda, Epaphras Angolo, Marvellous Shilongo, Simon Petrus, Orlanda Kambindangolo, Tareree Kaura, Tonateni Shaketange and Joram Shifa, to attend the two-day conference presented by local industry experts as well as top South African motivator, Stef du Plessis.

Van Wyk, Sibanda and Angolo serve on their institutions’ Students Representative Councils (SRC) while Shilongo is a former SRC president. Petrus is an Erongo Marine sponsored student at the Windhoek Vocational Training Centre and the other four are all current interns at the company.

“If you are a young leader, you have energy. You bring new ideas and a fresh perspective to the table. You have a lot of potential. At Erongo Marine Enterprises we want to make sure that we nurture young leadership potential and saw this as a golden opportunity to afford these individuals the opportunity to take part in such a great event,” said Dr Martha Uumati, Erongo Marine’s Managing Director.

Conference coordinator, Samuel Mocumi of Benguela Training Consultants, said “We wanted to charge each and every attending young professional to be a change agent and understand how success in leadership is underpinned by determination and emotional resilience; [and] make it clear that limits only exist their minds.”

“This leadership conference brought nourishment into my life because it encouraged, motivated, and inspired me to be a better person. As a leader, when you make a commitment you create hope, but when you keep a commitment you create trust,” commented one of the Erongo Marine interns, Kambindangolo, after the conference.

Another intern, Shaketange, added “We are not separated by our differences but by our ignorance. If you want to be a transformational leader you have to learn. As a leader your behaviour and attitude influence [many others]. It is our behaviour in the workplace that creates unwritten ground rules, which are people’s perception that this is how we do things around here. As a leader, I learned to influence others in a way that it will change their lives in a positive way.”


Caption: Celebrating leadership are from the left, Marvellous Shilongo (Former NUST SRC President), Paul Tangeni Ndjambula (Executive Assistant to the MD), Oaitse van Staden (Erongo Marine HR Manager), Orlanda Kambindangolo (Document Clerk), Joram Shifa (Intern), Simon Petrus (Sponsored student), Kudzai F. Sibanda (UNAM SRC President), Tonateni Shaetenge (Intern) and Tareree Kaura (also an intern).


 

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