Change Voices

This week, we talk to Zambian Priscilla Chomba Kinywa who is a digital transformation strategist and a certified fitness coach. She is an co-Founder of ProjectFit, a charity entity in Zambia that aims to promote health and fitness among the general population.

She has almost two decades’ experience in technology and innovation and focuses on helping large international non-profits ‘do good better’ by understanding and taking advantage of the opportunities presented by different technologies.

Her starting advice is all about goal setting. Just as the most common mistake that people make is setting unrealistic goals, the other mistake to not set any goals at all. She advises that we take time to define realistic and measurable goals.

Next, make it easier to maintain a fitness plan by following your own interests rather than the latest fad.

Priscilla encourages us to draw on those around us in order to find the time to do things for ourselves.

It is important to define what motivates your fitness path and then, she says, you just have to make it happen.

Youth employment is a major socio-economic development issue across the African continent. Africa has the youngest population in the world, yet few of its government programmes are targeted at this demographic.

This week on Change Voices, frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray talks to Misan Rewane, co-founder and CEO of West African Vocational Education, or WAVE.

Misan is one of the social entrepreneurs seeking to change that. Born in Lagos, she returned to Nigeria and became involved in vocational training and youth empowerment after graduating with an MBA from Harvard Business School.

WAVE was started in 2013 and tackles youth unemployment by growing the supply of work-ready youth, while helping to increase the demand for entry-level staff from employers. A Stanford University graduate, Misan is passionate about supporting social innovators in scaling their impact sustainably.

You can find more information about the work we do and the Change Voices podcast on our website, frayintermedia.com, or on our social media platforms @frayintermedia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, where our frayintermedia teams involved in the production of this podcast post regular updates and share the lessons as we go along.

If you have any specific women in mind that you’d like to hear from or if you want to support our endeavour, please contact Paula directly at [email protected] or direct message her on social media.

In this episode of Change Voices Frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray continues to explore the challenges, successes and lessons of leadership through the experiences of diverse women across Africa and beyond.

Her guest today is Ghanaian social entrepreneur Regina Honu, who runs a West African tech business and is CEO of Soronko Academy, a training ground for young women in the field of technology.

Soronko Academy is the first coding and human-centered design school for children and young adults in West Africa. Regina has received multiple awards, including being named by CNN as one of the 12 inspirational women who rock science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM. She was also named as one of the six women making an impact in Africa through tech, and one of the ten female entrepreneurs to watch in emerging economies.

You can find more information about the work we do and the @changevoices podcast on our website, frayintermedia.com or on our social media platforms @frayintermedia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, where our frayintermedia teams involved in the production of this podcast will be posting regular updates and sharing the lessons as we go along.

If you have any specific women in mind that you’d like to hear from or if you want to support our endeavour, please contact Paula directly at [email protected] or direct message her on social media.

This week the Change Voices team are at the offices of the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, where Frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray is talking to the executive director of CSVR, Nomfundo Mogapi, about healing in the workplace.

Nomfundo is a registered clinical psychologist with a Masters degree from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. She has extensive experience working in the field of traumatic stress and she has specialised in psychosocial interventions with ex-combatants, torture survivors and survivors of crime.

In this episode Nomfundo explains why it is so important for leaders to be awake to their own wounds and the impact of these wounds on their interactions in the workplace.

She says leaders can be peace carriers or trauma carriers, and talks about creating working environments that facilitate healing, rather than reinforcing woundedness.

You can find more information about the work we do and the @changevoices podcast on our website, frayintermedia.com or on our social media platforms @frayintermedia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, where our frayintermedia teams involved in the production of this podcast will be posting regular updates and sharing the lessons as we go along.

If you have any specific women in mind that you’d like to hear from or if you want to support our endeavour, please contact Paula directly at [email protected] or direct message her on social media.

In the tenth episode of the Change Voices podcast, frayintermedia CEO talks to Dr Ola Brown, the CEO and founder of Flying Doctors Nigeria, about entrepreneurship and building a business legacy.

Dr Ola Brown graduated from medical school in the UK at the age of 22. She is also a qualified helicopter pilot, so starting West Africa's first air ambulance service seemed like the natural way to combine her passion for aviation and medicine into a career.

On her journey, she had to overcome just focusing on the technical aspects of her work and learn to embrace the entrepreneurial and management roles so necessary for her business to be a success.

You can find more information about the work we do and the @changevoices podcast on our website, frayintermedia.com or on our social media platforms @frayintermedia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, where our frayintermedia teams involved in the production of this podcast will be posting regular updates and sharing the lessons as we go along.

If you have any specific women in mind that you’d like to hear from or if you want to support our endeavour, please contact Paula directly at [email protected] or direct message her on social media.

This week frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray visits the amandla.mobi offices in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, to chat to the organisation's founder and executive director Koketso Moeti.

amandla.mobi recently celebrated its fifth birthday, and since its inception has spearheaded multiple successful social justice policy campaigns. setting the organisation and its founder as a formidable force in South Africa’s civil society.

Koketso chats about what it takes for a campaign to succeed, and how creativity helps her sustain her passion. amandla,mobi’s campaigning is committed to low-income black women and non-gender conforming people and therefore focuses on issues which impact their lives. This clear focus helps them decide whether or not to invest their limited resources in a campaign.

You can find more information about the work we do and the Change Voices podcast on our website, frayintermedia.com, where you can also sign up for our leadership newsletter. Also look out for tips from each podcast on our social media platforms @frayintermedia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

In this week's episode of Change Voices, frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray speaks to Flight Lieutenant Quratulain Fatima, who went from being the first woman in the Pakistan Airforce to actively working to build peace in rural and conflict-ridden regions.

She says the absence of violence is not enough to sustain peace - but rather that peace is something which needs to be actively and positively worked for. For this, community and stakeholder involvement is essential.

Her role in peacebuilding within the areas she operates is undeniable, even more so as she uses technology to increase the impact of her work. As the co-founder of women4peacetech, she focuses on gender-inclusive development, empowerment through technology and conflict prevention.

Peacebuilding is specifically about helping communities resolve their problems before the situation turns violent, and women have an important part to play.

This makes her the ideal guest to join the conversation and share her insight about peacebuilding and how technology can be used to do so.

You can find more information about the work we do and the @changevoices podcast on our website, frayintermedia.com or on our social media platforms @frayintermedia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, where our frayintermedia teams involved in the production of this podcast will be posting regular updates and sharing the lessons as we go along.

If you have any specific women in mind that you’d like to hear from or if you want to support our endeavour, please contact Paula directly at [email protected] or direct message her on social media.

Our guest for Episode 7 of Change Voices is Nwabisa Makunga who will be talking to us about how to sustain yourself in a high-stress environment.

We all have stress in the workplace and, quite frankly, a little bit of stress can be good as we push ourselves to do better in difficult circumstances. But what do we do when that stress becomes too much? When sustained stress leaves us feeling demotivated and overwhelmed?

Nwabisa is the ideal person to talk about this topic, and to share some of her key strategies for coping. As the editor of one of South Africa's oldest newspapers, Port Elizabeth-based The Herald

Our guest this week works in a high-stress environment and has pulled together some key strategies for coping.

In today’s episode we’re joined by editor of The Herald newspaper, Nwabisa Makunga. The Port Elizabeth-based publication is one of the oldest in South Africa, having started in 1845, and is quite a legacy to be at the helm of.

Tough and direct, Nwabisa is dogged in her quest to bring South Africans the news in all its nitty-gritty detail, while upholding the ideals of truth, fairness and integrity. This, at times, can take its toll.

Nwabisa talks about sustaining herself despite the pressure and shares some of her stress-management techniques with us in this episode.

You can find more information about the work we do and the @changevoices podcast on our website, frayintermedia.com or on our social media platforms @frayintermedia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, where our frayintermedia teams involved in the production of this podcast will be posting regular updates and sharing the lessons as we go along.

If you have any specific women in mind that you’d like to hear from or if you want to support our endeavour, please contact Paula directly at [email protected] or direct message her on social media.

In the sixth episode of Change Voices frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray speaks to transformational leadership coach and trainer Dr Yene Assegid.

Yene is the founder of Shola Company and has been coaching for more than two decades after starting her career working with civil war survivors, women surviving in red light districts and with members of communities living in very precarious conditions.

She also has an MBA in Finance and Investment Analysis, and a PhD in Transformative Leadership and Change.

This episode's discussion centres on the value of coaching, especially when it comes to building confidence. A lack of confidence is a topic that often surfaces in conversations, especially among women in leadership positions.

You can find more information about the work we do and the @changevoices podcast on our website, frayintermedia.com or on our social media platforms @frayintermedia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, where our frayintermedia teams involved in the production of this podcast will be posting regular updates and sharing the lessons as we go along.

If you have any specific women in mind that you’d like to hear from or if you want to support our endeavour, please contact Paula directly at [email protected] or direct message her on social media.

In Episode 5 of Change Voices, Executive Director of the Social Justice Initiative Bongiwe Mlangeni talks to frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray about how to raise funds for social justice initiatives, and how that capital translates into real change.

Bongi’s move to philanthropy comes via a long career in journalism, then communication and finally social justice fundraising.

Bongiwe explains to Paula why donors are generally comfortable with funding individual welfare programmes, and why it remains so hard to convince them to fund long-term, systemic change.

Fundraising often feels like it detracts from the core work of delivering services, but service delivery is obviously not possible without proper funding.

But, as Paula explains, it is not that there is a lack of funds in Africa. There are around 170 000 high net worth individuals in Africa with a combined wealth of US$1,7trillion. These are the resources that social justice initiatives and other organisations need to tap into to effect change.

You can find more information about the work we do and the @changevoices podcast on our website, frayintermedia.com or on our social media platforms @frayintermedia on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn, where our frayintermedia teams involved in the production of this podcast will be posting regular updates and sharing the lessons as we go along.

If you have any specific women in mind that you’d like to hear from or if you want to support our endeavour, please contact Paula directly at [email protected] or direct message her on social media.