Exploring less usual careers in human rights
Summary
The first podcast episode of the series ‘The Road Less Traveled’ features Dumiso Gatsha who works at the nexus of human rights and sustainable development.
Coming from auditing, Dumi pivoted to activism and graduated from the LLM/MPhil in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA) from the University of Pretoria. They reflected on how the master helped them to navigate the spaces where they wanted to have an influence but recognised that education can “only take you that far.” “It is unfortunate that we are told what to think and not how to think. To create a better world requires critical thinking.”
They started their own NGO in Botswana, Success Capital, as a result of recognising that there are significant gaps around youth agency, autonomy representation, voice and visibility. “I was healing my younger self. I did not know that it would touch other people.”
Dumi explains how they work on eliminating the barriers between grassroots experiences and global policymaking, what are the challenges and the rewards in running your own NGO or campaign and which skills make a difference in occupying those governance spaces for people with lived experience. “Having the capacity to be flexible enough, agile enough to respond to the context, strategic enough to network, strategic enough to navigate all the different challenges.”
Enjoy this extremely rich and lively discussion in which our guest feels as comfortable quoting Nelson Mandela and Maya Angelo as referring to Madonna and Oprah Winfrey.
The liberation song that Dumi mentioned in the podcast is ‘Not Yet Uhuru’ (which means 'We have not yet secure our rights') from Letta Mbulu and can be found here:
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It is unfortunate that we are told what to think and not how to think. To create a better world requires critical thinking.
Dumiso Gatsha
Proudly Pan African, unequivocally non-binary queer feminist working on eliminating the barriers between grassroots experiences and global policymaking. Dumi is Founder of Success Capital Organisation a queer, youth, migrant, ethnic minority, feminist-led, managed and serving grassroots organisation challenging power, privilege and patriarchy impeding decolonial, climate, health, gender, and socioeconomic justice. A two-time masters graduate, Chartered Global Management Accountant and PRINCE2 Practitioner with consulting and work experience at national, regional and global levels.
Alumn of GC Africa
Follow them on twitter @prosuccessbw and LinkedIn: Dumiso Gatsha