Our OD Young Person of the Month is Deliwe Makata from Malawi. Deliwe Makata is a young woman passionate about women and youth advancement and development. She is a passionate author, change enthusiast and award-winning development-oriented expert whose work has for the past 6 years focused on ensuring that individuals have spaces for learning, growth and development. She is the Founder and Executive Director of Women Inspire, an empowerment organization that has since 2016 worked on creating opportunities for women, youth and girls in areas of education, leadership and economic advancement. Currently, she is engineering (as a Founder) the acceleration of an economic growth micro- Credit start-up called Swift Capital, that serves rural based entrepreneurs with the capacity of business and finance management and cash transfers for change. Swift Capital also works in advancing Financial Literacy as a beacon of finance advancement.
Read her amazing story below and be inspired.
DELIWE MAKATA
Deliwe is award-winning practitioner, having so far been awarded the “Future Africa Leaders Award, Champion for Girls and Youth Advancement, and recently the Commonwealth Youth Awards, which are all in recognition for her contribution towards the social economic development of individuals and communities at large. She is also an alumnus of Mandela Washington Fellowship under the Leadership in Business, where she was awarded an entrepreneur prize for standing out in her work of advancing financial growth through Swift Capital.
As a writer, Deliwe has authored two books titled Go for Gold, and The Fulfilled Woman, written to inspire and challenge individuals and women into pursuing their potential as a reservoir of Gold. She has recently released a SHORT book titled “Navigating your 20’s with confidence” that she hopes will give young people in their 20s the nuggets that can help them to successfully live their 20s with a positive enthusiasm of life, as they live, learn and grow. The books can be found and downloaded through her personal website
On How She Started
Deliwe likes to share that her story of leadership and impact began with a heartbreak. She went through a very damaging heartbreak, and at the time, being so young and not mature enough to handle pain, she almost lost herself. One day while she was thinking and allowing the pain to take its course, she asked herself some questions. Those questions were what birthed Women Inspire. At the time, she just wanted to create a platform where girls are there for girls. She wanted the underprivileged to be represented and to be given a voice. She wondered, if a girl like her could go through such a time and feel alone and helpless, what of other girls who are going through more than just emotional pain. It was from there a vision was birthed and has over the years grown into an organization serving the potential of girls, women, and youth in areas of education, leadership, and economic empowerment.
A few years later, as she continued to grow as a young person, both in vision and capacity, she went ahead and founded an entity called Swift Capital. At Swift Capital, their aim is simple: “To provide financial growth and development to individuals and entities through finance education, access to affordable credit, and sound saving opportunities.”
On Her Successes
Over the years Deliwe has achieved quite a lot through both institutions she founded. They have implemented over 10 successful long term and short projects. At Women Inspire, they have grown to be a sustainably granted organization working with institutions like the EU. Their programs have reached over 15 thousand young girls, women and youth across the country and they have also partnered with both local and international stakeholders in areas of education capacity, leadership empowerment and economic advancements. They have held over 5 Financial Literacy trainings equipping individuals with knowledge and skills for effective and informed money management decisions. Deliwe and her team have also launched the Capital Fund, Micro Credit Micro Credit institution aimed at providing access to affordable credit for rural based individuals running small businesses and have serviced these loans to over 50 young business owners so far and they continue to work towards growth.
As young leader, Deliwe has been recognized and received international awards and certifications including the Future African Leaders Award, the Mandela Washington Fellowship and the Commonwealth Youth Award Winner for Excellence in Development Work. She has also been professionally certified by institutions like The Social Enterprise Academy, The Segal Family Foundation through Social Impact Incubation, Rise Up, TedX as a guest speaker and so much more. Deliwe has also professionally grown to obtain her Masters in Development Policy with Korea Development Institute in South Korea, majoring in International Development and Sustainable Development.
On Her Challenges And Future Plans
Deliwe’s goal is to ensure that she grows both Women Inspire and Swift Capital to be financially stable and sustainably operational entities. They want to expand their reach both in numbers and grow in using innovative approaches to their work. As Swift Capital, they have plans to become a reliable Fintech solution for the unbanked requiring banking solutions that don’t exploit their potential. Over the next five years, they expect to contribute to the financial sustainability of Malawi and Africa as a whole.
In the course of her work, Deliwe has met a lot of obstacles, the one challenge has always been support. Not just financial support but even the moral and emotional support that young founders need to get going is mostly not there. People will doubt your vision. Some will claim that it won’t go far. Some will discredit your dreams. And she experienced a lot of that in her journey but she kept on regardless because according to her, you cannot afford to join everyone else in not believing in you. ”Whatever I do, I always had to remember that the only person worth bringing me done, is me, and I will not do that to myself. I kept dreaming, I kept working and I kept believing. The more I continued to add value to myself and produce value driven results, the more a lot of opportunities of support kept opening up”, Deliwe said.
Her Words of Advice For The Youth
Like I mentioned earlier, prioritize YOU. Your belief in yourself and your dream. Prioritize adding value to your life and prioritize impactful results. The world will argue with your words, but they will never argue with your results. As a young leader, realize that there’s a serious need for character driven individuals to fill the gap, and decide to be that individual. You are the solution the world is waiting for, but you will not get there by chance. Build yourself into an individual the world cannot ignore.
You can connect with Deliwe on LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and on her website.
Who will be the next OD Young Person of the Month?
You can be the next Opportunity Desk Young Person of the Month! All you have to do is get a friend to recommend your work or fill out the nomination form here. We want to use the platform to recognize and celebrate the efforts of amazing young people around the world. Oh! And you must be an active Opportunity Desk member, either as a fan, reader, or subscriber! Share!
