Namibia: Anna Ndinalego

“Whatsoever a man can do, so can a woman.”

Anna Ndinalego, 41 years of age, grew up in Okathitu village and went to school till grade 12, which was in 1995. After finishing school she went to Oshakati in 2002 to look for greener pastures. She got recruited as a security guard, earning only N$ 170 per month. She then decided to leave the job and start strangling on her own, by working in the Mahangu field of different people in her community and the owners of the fields pay her according to the work done, this only occurred during rainy season. In dry season she buys different types of snacks and sells it on the street corners of Oshakati. She’s married for 5 years and a mother of 2 kids plus her niece that she is taking care of. She then decided to venture into business because the hardship she was going through and to be able to provide for the family.

In 2008 she opened her business called “Ndina Marketing” which operates from home, in order to balance her business life and her personal life. The main reason behind opening a business was to finance her personal life, which includes feeding and clothing herself and the children under her care. Before starting her business she had to save up some money from working in Mahangu fields and selling snacks so that it could sum up to the start-up capital cost of starting her business.

Anna has managed to employee one staff member from her community for her business is still small but there is still room for it to grow. Her business is not categorised to one specific product, for she sells a variety of different things such as bread, nuts, raisins, Marula oil, eggs, and fish. Some of her products are seasonal and they are only sold during a specific season such as Mopany worms, Wambo spinach, and many other seasonal products. Her regular customers are those around her community, school kids, and her neighbours.

After Anna opened up the business, her personal life changed dramatically. For now she can buy clothes, cosmetics, food, and even school uniforms for the kids at home, all this could not be done when there was no business. She now helps out her husband with financial assistance when he is in need of money. Her husband use to abuse alcohol a lot and she was experiencing violence and abuse almost every week. Her husband use to take the business money to buy alcohol, leaving at home no money to buy food for the family but because of her influence of what she has learnt from Genderlinks, he is now a changed man. He does not abuse alcohol anymore, he assist the business financially when it is facing hardship, he even decided to open up a bank account for the child so that they can start saving now for their children’s future. The level of peace in her personal life has increase and now she does not experience any form of violence and abuse.

Anna is selected for the driver of change because not only has her personal life and her business life changed but she continue to encourage other women not to have the mentality of the saying that the ladies should not do any work but just depend on the man for everything. She says that ladies should strive to work hard in their life to be independent, and that this advice she always shares it with other women in her community. She says her advice was taken seriously by a lady name “Painge Lukas” who started her business of selling different variety of things and now she is independent, she provides herself with everything she needs and wants.

The training she received from Genderlinks helped her realize the importance of saving and keeping record of her monthly income and expenses. Before the training she would use up the money she made from selling, without even keeping record of how much money she has made on that day. The situation resulted in the loss of money in her business. The training also enlightened her about what should be done in order to be assisted with capital to grow the business.

Anna believes that whatsoever a man can do, so can a woman. Every business owned or run by a man, can also be owned or run by a women, she believes that man and women are equal.

Anna say that the level of violence and abuse in one’s life can be reduce by responding positively, calmly, and peacefully to their partners whenever an argument is about to erupt. People should also learn to respect their partners and if violence or abuse erupts between partners, they should report it to the police or to family members. Most importantly they should strive to gain knowledge and understanding, and learn to always work harder to better their lives.

The only challenge faced by her business is a place to sell her product and capital. She plans to have an infrastructure where she could be doing business, and if she gets capital she would want to buy a pickup car to transport her products.

She says that Genderlinks should not leave them alone, for what Genderlinks is doing and have done is totally giving them more encouragement to continue to better their lifes and become self-dependent.