A group of Mogale City councillors have signed up for a provincial mentorship initiative designed to improve leadership and other skills of women in government.
Female councillors in Mogale City have been paired up with mentors to sharpen their leadership skills – and some will be attending lessons covering various subjects.
This follows breakfast sessions hosted from 22 to 24 January by Qedani Mahlangu, the Gauteng MEC for local government, to kick start a mentorship programme for female councillors in the province.
The sessions are part of the provincial Women Councillors Mentorship Programme known as Kwanele.
In all, 14 female councillors from Mogale City attended a breakfast in Tshwane and were assigned to mentors. Of the 64 councillors in the City, 27 are women.
Jana Perold, the deputy director and gender co-ordinator in the Office of the MEC, says breakfast sessions form part of the drive by the department of local government to upgrade the skills of female councillors and to give them a support system in executing their duties.
“The department is implementing a programme where women councillors are taken under the wing of specific mentors who can assist them and support them in their working environment, helping them to deal with the challenges they face while conducting their work and fulfilling their roles as councillors.”
Dee Dicks, who heads up the Office of the Speaker in Mogale City, says many councillors gave positive feedback on the programme.
“Female councillors need to be more confident in taking on their roles as leaders of the community. Their roles in the council will also be enhanced.”
Dicks says the mentors are mainly professionals from institutions such as Standard Bank and Price Waterhouse Cooper and entrepreneurs. “They have different experiences in fields such as finance, human resources and agriculture.”
Describing Mogale as a partly rural area, Dicks says many councillors were interested in agriculture, and hoped that their mentors would help them grow in this field.
Emily Mathe, the member of the mayoral committee for health, says meeting with mentors was engaging. “We were given time to talk about ourselves; spelling out our backgrounds. We talked about our marital status, the different roles we play as wives, mothers and public representatives and how we juggle these roles.”
The challenge now, she says, is for councillors to establish relationships with mentors over time.
Noluthando Mangole, Speaker of Mogale City, says the mentorship programme is very impressive. She expresses confidence that Mogale councillors will work with their mentors to develop their skills. “Speaking to someone who has considerably more professional insight and empathy makes it so much easier to communicate and feel confident. This programme will definitely empower women councillors.”
According to Perold, in addition to the mentorship programme, councillors will undergo skills development courses; skills they acquire will help them to perform their work better.
The aim, she says, is “to empower women councillors in Gauteng through a mentorship programme that will form the foundation of a support structure, building on this with different skills training and development initiatives”.
There are two training approaches on the mentorship programme. “The first is informal training and skills transfer, and the second is where a select group of women councillors get the opportunity to be part of a formal training programme.”
The department of local government will strive to ensure that the courses councillors attend are accredited. The local government sector education and training authority, or seta, is working on registering a qualification through the South African Qualifications Authority, called the National Certificate: Local Government Councillor Practices.
Perold says the purpose of the qualification is to enable learners to apply the relevant competencies to fulfill their roles and responsibilities in the council.
“Any training that the women councillors undergo must be something that will be recognised in the workplace and must have some educational merit to it. Therefore, the [local government department] will encourage that any training programmes are recognised by [the local government seta] and are accredited, together with the service provider conducting the training being an accredited trainer with seta – specifically the local government seta.”
Ultimately, she says, these sessions will enable female councillors to gain equal respect in local government institutions and in society.
For more information, write to dlgwomen.councillors@gauteng.gov.za.