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PANel Zambia offers career path blueprint
Gethsemane Mwizabi
08 Aug 2007
ARE you a high school student or school leaver? Or are you a school drop out? Like everyone else, you will want to live the lifestyle that will make you happy. Of all the things that will make your lifestyle, your career will probably be the most important. As an adult, you may probably be identified by the kind of work you do.
Your career will determine, at least in part, your friends, where you live, and how you spend your leisure time. People work for different reasons. They work for money to pay for necessities such as food, clothing and housing. They work to satisfy their needs for social contact, esteem, and self-realisation. Choosing a career remains a huge puzzle for a lot of youngsters.
The Pan-African Network of Leaders (PANeL) has thus come on board to fill this gap. PANeL has devised a programme to reach out to schools in Zambia with practical career experiences. Values and personality play an important role in choosing careers. PANeL is an alumni of people that were beneficiaries of the Inter Action Leadership Programme in 19 African countries, mostly Anglophone. PANeL is anchored on the six passions, seven principles and eight assumptions. Among the passions include, Africa, Age, Gender, Community, Leadership and Me. On the passion of leadership, PANeL argues that leadership is core to the future success of Africa.
As for the schools, career, leadership project, it was designed to deliver the six passions, seven principles and eight assumptions about interaction Leadership Programme to reach a wider audience. The programme is expected to run through the whole country initially confined to Lusaka and the surrounding areas. It will initially run with high schools, colleges and universities in and around Lusaka before it is up scaled into a national project.
Since this will be a presentation-based programme, it is expected that the resource persons will be drawn from PANeL, which at the moment boasts of over 40 professionals in different fields and spheres of life. The projects will also target traditional leaders.
It is a somewhat robust activity meant to wash down prejudices and thereafter create hope and promise among youths. It is believed that after the presentations, beneficiaries will begin to have a change of heart and mind.
It is a fact that the world is increasingly getting incensed and impatient by the lack of re-investments in communities where businesses operate. This discontentment has shown its ugly face in places like the Niger delta in Nigeria from where the late civil rights leader Ken Sarowiwa hailed. In the developed world, people have been known to boycott products of companies that do not give back to the communities they operate from. In Zambia, the situation is different, there is very little happening in the area of social responsibility and where it does, it is done in a very haphazard and uncoordinated way.
"We are a team of professionals who are out to mentor the young people for any kind of leadership. We believe career guidance is the critical area to start from" says PANeL Zambia Coordinator, Cheelo Mwiinga. Mr Mwiinga argues that a whole lot of the frustrations found in some professionals today was hugely as a result of poor career choices, they could have made in there formative years. The PANeL coordinator further argues that lots of youths today had become endangered species due to lack of practical guidance. It is hoped that through the ambitious school out-reach programme, Zambians will begin to demand social responsibility from companies operating in their communities. So far, PANeL has had successful career and leadership talks with schools around Lusaka. Among the schools are Arakan Barracks and Libala High Schools where a team of diverse professionals gave real life career experiences to pupils and teachers alike. Arakan Barracks deputy school headteacher, Odinah Inambwai says the programme is useful and relevant to pupils. "They were here (Arakan Barracks) and the pupils had a wonderful time. The whole concept is just what the children need" she says.
To achieve its objectives, PANeL has so far partnered with institutions like the British Council. PANeL also hopes to partner with the ministries of Education and Local Government and Housing among others. As far as career guidance is concerned, PANeL views this as a central focus to its daily activities. According to the book, World of Work one’s career choice is one of the most important decisions one could ever make.
The PANeL philosophy is pretty unique in its own right. The whole idea is about self-discovery. Before you start exploring careers, the programme demands you to know yourself a little better. One should have an understanding of his or her own abilities, values and personality. Then one can match him or herself with a realistic, satisfying career. That is the PANeL way of doing things. Further, PANel believes in the importance for pupils to know their values when making career decisions. For example, if one places a high value on helping others, they will not want a job that seems socially useless or harmful, no matter how big the salary. More so If spending time with your family is important, you would not need a career like that of a journalist that requires you to travel a great deal. The whole PANeL concept rests on the premise that no talent or gift is inferior to the other, hence the need to promote youngsters to pursue what they are best at. Artistic people, for example, like to get involved in free unregulated activities so that they could create new forms of art. Artistic people develop skills in languages, art, music, drama and writing.
“I like to think that young people need mentors, models and heroes to help them to dream more,” says Standard Chartered Bank Country compliance manager, John Chundu. Mr Chundu, who is also an active PANeL member, says the aspect of mentoring has been lacking in modern day society. He says several young people had been growing up without direction not because they were not talented or gifted but because they lacked guidance from the beginning. "There is a lot of wasted talent, aptitudes and abilities out there. As PANeL, we are coming as a resource team to help restore self esteem in youths,” he says.
After one has made a career decision, there is need to plan their careers. This means establishing, planning goals and choosing the kind and amount of education and training one needs. PANeL’s vision is to create and promote an environment that enhances human dignity, peace, social justice and unity through good interaction and hard work as the basis for sustainable development to make Zambia and Africa a better place to live in. There is an American saying that goes something like this. "You got to have a dream. If you don’t have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true?" The point is, if you do not know where you are going, how will you ever get there?" Thus PANeL, believes in the values of dreams and the rewards that come with hard work. Organiasation vice-president James Benkele says parents, guardians and teachers have an obligation to let children be what they can all be. "As parents, our role is to guide our children according to their make ups. I’m sure the Creator had a plan to make everyone of them different,’ he says. He says life is both frustrating and boring and doing a what one does not enjoy saying PANeL is against the idea of pursuing a careers just for the sake of it.
Ultimately, the PANeL agenda is a worth cause. It is out to serve a concrete pursuit of bringing out the best in those struggling with low self-esteem and identity. The school outreach programme is just one example of its relentless efforts to build confidence in students and pupils.
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