Nozibele Mtyali – South Africa

Councillor Nozibele Mtyali, from Ukhahlamba metropolitan council in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa says her experiences of male domination within the family while she was growing up and her belief in the ideals of a non-sexist and non-racist society played a key role in her decision to join the ANC in 1990.

But it hasn’t been an easy road. Although Mtyali has been a councillor for six years and is now in her second term, she cites “low self-confidence” as the major challenge that she still faces. Some of the issues linked to this are that women often have a lot of self doubt; “I also had this on my arrival,” she says. She often felt ill-equipped to engage and she worried about her language (English) competency and feared the response of her colleagues.

But she began to grow when an opening became available in the Mayoral Executive Committee and she was asked by the mayor to be part of it. “I grew out of my shell.” She says that “It helped having a female councillor to provide support and mentor me along the way.” Another thing which made things easier was the positive feedback she received from her female colleagues about her performance in the Council.

Nozibele Mtyali from Ukhahlamba district in South Africa says that more often than not women councillors do not have partners who are understanding of the demands of the work of a councillor. “Society and men have yet to adjust to the demands that come with being a working woman.” She says that many of her councillor colleagues have gone though marital problems and even divorce because of the demands of their work; a finding corroborated by the research.

Councillor Nozibele Mtyali from Ukhahlamba District in South Africa is testament to the benefits of mentoring. She says that when she started as a councillor she had low self confidence but that she began to grow when the Mayor asked her to be part of the Mayoral Executive Committee. She says that she grew out of her shell and that what helped was having a female councillor to provide her with support and being her mentor.