Female bus driver breaks stereotype notion

The sight of a man driving a bus is expected in today’s society, but the sight of women driving buses is not your everyday thing and of late a woman has broken the stereotype of the male dominated industry.
Annelly Ngwedha is the only female bus driver in the capital that can be seen driving around the ever busy City of Windhoek bus.
“Driving is my passion and when I go to work everyday it is not like a job to me, it is something I love doing”, she said. “My male co-workers treat me like their own, they do not treat me any differently, I am part of the family”, said Ngwedha.
Ngwedha who started off  her career at the Namibian Defence Force (NDF) as an instructor in the transport department moved over to the profession after noticing that there were not any  female bus drivers and subsequently joined the City of Windhoek as a bus driver. Her family has always encouraged her to follow her dream and after she got her license she applied for a job at the City and was successful.

As with the case of entering a traditionally male dominated industry, Ngwedha said at first passengers would be sceptically when seeing that a woman is behind the wheel and that they would make funny comments, but after they reached their destination their attitude changes and they even thank her.
“I hope more women take up this profession and my future plans are to become an instructor for buses so that I may be able to teach them and make them realise that they can also do it, there is always room for improvement”, said Ngwedha.
With a spring in her step and a smile on her face she let the interview determined to make a difference and to make sure her passengers get to their destination safely and pleaded to taxi drivers to be good drivers for their commuters so that they arrive safely.