Change Voices

In this fifth episode of season two, we're in conversation with public relations consultant, public speaker and WomeninTechZA co-founder Samantha Perry. Through the work of WomeninTechZA, Perry aims to bridge the gender diversity gap in the tech sector. Working both as a journalist and PR professional in a consultancy and full-time capacity over the past 20 years, Perry has covered the ICT sector for the likes of Computing SA (editor), ComputerWeek, and Brainstorm magazine (editor). In her capacity as a PR professional and consultant, she has worked with listed and multinational organisations such as Striata, Google, Telkom, MTN and Dimension Data. She currently serves as the Johannesburg Agency Lead for public relations and integrated marketing agency Irvine Partners. We'd love to hear from you, tweet us @changevoices, find us on Instagram, connect with us on LinkedIn, and visit our website frayintermedia.com. If you have any specific women in mind that you'd like to hear from or if you want to support our endeavor, please contact Paula directly at pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media.

In this fourth episode of season two, were in conversation with Gabriella Razanno, founder of OpenUp, a civic tech lab based in Cape Town. Razzano is a researcher and legal consultant on issues of transparency, open data, technology and law. She has contributed to the drafting of regional instruments (such as the African model law on access to information, the African declaration on internet rights and freedoms), and is drafting the SADC model law on the digital economy. We'd love to hear from you, tweet us @changevoices, find us on Instagram, connect with us on LinkedIn, and visit our website frayintermedia.com. 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media. Change Voices is a production of frayintermedia Produced by Zoe Naledi Neocosmos Social Media and Graphics by Aphiwe Kunene Editing by Desmond Latham and Zoe Naledi Neocosmos

In this third episode of the Change Voices series, host Paula Fray is in conversation with Congolese-born Huguette Diakabana, a global health practitioner whose expertise considers the practice of connecting people to life-saving technologies. Diakabana is Co-Founder of the African Alliance of Digital Health Networks. She has deployed technology-based solutions in education, community development, and global health in over 20 countries throughout Africa. She currently works with organizations and governments to leverage data to enhance the quality of health services. She is also a New Voices Fellow with the Aspen Institute and Co-Chair of the WHO Digital Health Technical Advisory Group. We'd love to hear from you, tweet us @changevoices, find us on Instagram, connect with us on LinkedIn, and visit our website frayintermedia.com. 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media.

Our Change Voices guest this week is Dr Zamambo Mkhize, a lecturer in Gender Studies at the African Gender Institute at the University of Cape Town. Having undertaken her Honours in Criminology and Master's in Gender Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Zamambo also completed her PhD in Pennsylvania as a Fulbright scholar. Author of “Polygyny and Gender” published in September 2021, her research focus includes African women in high-stakes degrees such as science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Zamambo founded the African STEMinist foundation which is dedicated to supporting, mentoring and advancing African women in STEM fields. We'd love to hear from you, tweet us @changevoices, find us on Instagram, connect with us on LinkedIn, and visit our website frayintermedia.com. 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media. Change Voices is a production of frayintermedia Produced by Zoe Naledi Neocosmos Social Media and Graphics by Aphiwe Kunene Editing by Desmond Latham and Zoe Naledi Neocosmos

Today is the launch of season 2! Our first guest is Chenai Chair, the Special Advisor on Africa Mradi Innovation at Mozilla Foundation. She is an expert on the intersection of digital technology and gender and currently supports the implementation of Common Voice African languages work by Mozilla - an open-source data set to support voices in technology intervention. In this episode, we explore digital technology and the gender divide, privacy and intersectional feminism as well as what needs to be done in terms of policy in order to uphold digital rights. We'd love to hear from you, tweet at us @changevoices, find us on Instagram, connect with us on LinkedIn, and visit our website frayintermedia.com. 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media.

Host Paula Fray is still in Kampala, Uganda, and this week she is speaking about supporting transformational leadership with Rita Atukwasa. Rita is executive director of the institute for social transformation where she led a transformative leadership process with Uganda’s market women. Rita has extensive experience with public policy analysis, gender budgeting, mainstreaming, legislative analysis and drafting amongst others. We explored how her organisation helped market women develop an APP though the process of transformational leadership.

Our Change Voices guest this week is the award-winning Agnes Igoye who is Uganda’s deputy national coordinator for the prevention of trafficking in persons and heads up Uganda’s Immigration Training Academy. She is also a 2018 Aspen New Voices Fellow. Agnes escaped human traffickers at age 14 when the Lord’s Resistance Army raided her village. Since then, she’s built a centre for human-trafficking survivors, trained over 2,000 law enforcement officials to counter human trafficking, and fundraised for and delivered almost 100 000 textbooks to educate vulnerable children. Not surprisingly, she has been named as one of New African Magazine’s 100 most influential Africans and is the winner of the 2016 Diane von Furstenberg International Award, University of Minnesota’s Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals, and she made the 2017 Clinton Global Initiative University Alumni Honour Roll. She met our host, Paula Fray in Kampala and spoke about challenging cultural perceptions and the influence of her father in bringing up feminist daughters. She also shares her story about the Lord’s Resistance Army, human trafficking and how she got inspired to build a rehabilitation centre for women survivors of human trafficking. Please be warned, some of these issues might be difficult to listen to. 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media.

Host Paula Fray is in Uganda chatting to Penelope Sanyu, Chief Steward at Femme Forte, about breaking the mould in order to be a catalyst for change. A lawyer by training, Penelope is a young thinker, writer and author, who describes herself as an Agent of Positive Social Change and Transformation. She has dedicated most of her career building the capacity of young people to innovatively engage with and influence public policy in various spaces.

This week our Change Voices host Paula Fray is in Uganda where she is speaking to CivSource CEO Jacqueline Asiimwe-Mwesige about giving in Africa. Jacqueline oversees an independent advisory firm that is committed to nurturing a more sustainable, effective and connected civil society through accountable philanthropic practice. She is a Ugandan and USA trained lawyer with a successful record of accomplishments in leadership, management, law and policy formulation, as well as advocacy and training. Jacqueline’s vision of philanthropy goes beyond money and is a call to action for every leader to engage their teams in the process of giving. 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media.

In this week's episode of Change Voices, the CEO of frayintermedia, Paula Fray, talks to coach, mentor and trainer Shireen Motara about how organisations can ensure strong boards for good governance. Previous episodes have explored personal strength and confidence, and how to strengthen the movements and organisations we belong to. Shireen works with women leaders who seek to influence decisions at the highest levels of society, business and community. She has more than two decades’ experience in the non-profit sector as an advisor, researcher, manager, executive director, board member and consultant. Beyond the fiduciary responsibilities that board members hold, this conversation has highlighted the critical of boards in sustaining organisations. 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media.

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 pfray@frayintermedia.com 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media.

In this episode of Change Voices frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray speaks to Zoe Titus, who is the Strategic Coordinator at the Namibia Media Trust. Zoe has dedicated her time and efforts to the advancement of media freedom and media development in Southern Africa over the past two decades, which makes her the ideal guest to talk about mobilising for social change. She has spearheaded projects and campaigns to provide practical support for journalists working in danger zones, and has advocated for changes in policy, pushing for an environment and frameworks that support a vibrant and independent media sector the region. But this change does not happen overnight, and Zoe has some advice for others who are hoping to bring about real change in their communities or industries. Let us know if you found these tips useful and remember to join the online conversation on all frayintermedia social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn. You can find more information about the work we do and the @changevoices podcast on our website, frayintermedia.com where you can also sign up for the Change Voices newsletter. If you have any specific women in mind that you’d like to hear from or if you want to support our endeavour, then you can contact Paula directly at pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media.

In the third episode of Change Voices frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray talks to Naomi Tulay-Solanke, all the way from Liberia, about how to start and sustain an organisation. Naomi is the founder and director of Community Health Initiative and is at the forefront of providing health access to marginalised communities. While her initial aims focused on reproductive health and education for young girls, Naomi had the added challenge of starting her organisation amid the crisis of an Ebola epidemic. Her work is groundbreaking. She helps women get improved access to healthcare while developing sustainable solutions to their problems. Naomi is increasing reproductive health awareness and helping to keep young girls in schools, partly by breaking cultural taboos around issues such as menstruation. She has also developed an effective, reusable sanitary pad made from locally available materials though her Pad4Girls project, which helps keep girls in school during their menstrual periods. The young girls make the pads themselves while she trains women’s cooperatives to produce a version certified by the Ministry of Health, that is sold to generate income. In this episode Naomi shares some of the challenges in starting and sustaining an organisation, as well as lessons learned along the way.

This week in Change Voices frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray talks to Bertha Dlamini about the power of networking and how to build successful networks that work. Bertha is the current president of the African Women in Energy and Power, which is an initiative geared towards women entrepreneurs in energy. The network is active in 22 markets on the continent, focusing on the Eastern Africa power pool and the southern African power pool. Networking, when done right, works, Evidence points to networking and its relationship building as essential for business and career development. Up to 70% of appointments for senior positions are the result of networked relationships. Networking is an effective way to give women an opportunity to gain information, skills and contacts in any sector. But not all networks are equal. Change Voices invited Bertha to chat about how she uses networking, and what gives her networks their impact. 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media.

Change Voices is a weekly podcast exploring the challenges, successes and lessons of leadership through the experiences of diverse women leaders across Africa and beyond. Hosted by frayintermedia CEO Paula Fray, we want the Change Voices podcast to contribute to changing and challenging the perceptions about who leads and who speaks about leadership. Our inaugural guest is writer Sisonke Msimang, who is an acclaimed columnist and author of the autobiographical “Always Another Country” as well as the recently published “The Resurrection of Winnie Mandela”. She speaks about her struggles of a life in exile - transporting the reader to her childhood in Zambia and Kenya, her studies in North America and her return to contemporary South Africa with all its complexities and contradictions. A bold voice focused on race, gender and democracy, she has written for a range of international publications. For this reason, she’s the ideal person to talk to us today about amplifying our voices, and the power and importance of speaking out, and speaking up. 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 pfray@frayintermedia.com or direct message her on social media.