from RaisingMalawi.org Newsletter
In my life, I’ve had the opportunity to meet strong, smart, independent women from every walk of life. They’ve inspired me in many ways, and continue to remind me that women around the world are connected by many common threads.
Sharing stories of women’s achievements on International Women’s Day is an amazing way to honor and pay tribute to the incredible women who have inspired us to be the people we are today. My dear friend and the CEO of the Raising Malawi Academy for Girls, Anjimile Oponyo, recently shared a story with me that I will never forget.
Please take just a few minutes to read a story from Anjimile that brought a smile to my face and tears to my eyes.
Shared by Anjimile Oponyo:
Sometimes, if we’re very fortunate, we meet the one person who will forever change the course of our lives. Working in the Planning Unit of the Ministry of Education in Malawi I met mine.
I met Nwanganga Shields, a Nigerian woman who was heading the World Bank team that was working on the Education and Health programmes in Malawi. I could not believe that this African woman had so much power; every time she sent a message that she was bringing her team to Malawi everybody in the Ministry was running around preparing for her visit.
She requested that I work for her, and with every meeting she gave me more challenging work — including me in the studies and giving me more responsibilities on the ground.
One day she said to me, “If you are doing this work without training then you need to go to graduate school.” She found a place for me at the George Washington University at the School of Education. The battle now was to convince the men in the Ministry to let me go.
She noticed that when we had meetings, I was always sent to go and inform the kitchen to bring the tea. One day as I stood up in the meeting she asked me why I was going to call for the tea when I needed to contribute to the meeting. She said this is the last time you are doing tea duty, you have a degree and you are going to graduate school. She asked the meeting if anybody had an objection, everybody was quiet. She said she would take it as agreement since nobody had objected. Nwanganga is an African woman and she knew that there was no agreement, the men around the table were just shocked and stunned.
After she left, I was called and informed that I would not be going to graduate school at the George Washington University — I was devastated. I believed I wanted an American education because I wanted to be like Nwanganga Shields, fearless, confident, knowledgeable and proud to be African. In all the time I knew Nwanganga, and even though she was married to an Irishman, I had never seen her put on western clothes! She was so proud to be African, even though her views and attitude were completely western.
I was so crushed to be calling Nwanganga to tell her that I would not be taking my place at George Washington as planned. I should have known this fearless, determined woman would not be stopped. Nwanganga immediately sent me to the British Airways office where she had a ticket to America waiting for me.
It took a month after I arrived, but she managed to convince the Ministry to allow me to start school. She helped me find a place to stay, she got me a tutor to learn even basic skills like keyboarding, and she got me a job at the World Bank so that I could continue to work on research projects.
Every time I was homesick or discouraged she would invite me to her house and cook me African food and remind me that it was important that I succeed for the sake of other Malawian women who had never been given the same opportunity because of the assumption that they couldn’t do it.
She not only inspired me to strive to be like her, she inspired me to fight to open doors for other women.
If this one woman had not made that decision to fight so that I could go to graduate school I would have never left Malawi. I owe that one woman my education. Because of her I have educated my own children, and because of her my daughters do not think they might go to graduate school, they know they will. And because of this woman, every time a woman tells me that she wants to do something and there is a stumbling block in front of her, I start looking for solutions right away.
Nwanganga showed me that you should stop at nothing to open a door for a fellow woman. My way of saying thank you to her is helping other women the way she helped me. I took the job as Head of Raising Malawi Academy for Girls because it gives me the opportunity to do for hundreds of girls what Nwanganga did for me. What an opportunity, to be able to say thank you to Nwanganga over and over again.
I hope that one day, when Raising Malawi Academy for Girls is open she will come to Malawi and speak to the girls in the school and give them the same inspirational talks she gave to me.
Please honor a woman in your life, by sharing your story with us now:
http://www.raisingmalawi.org/WomensDay
Madonna
Sticky & Sweet 
Tom Munro 
Revolver 
Hope For Haiti 
Sticky & Sweet 
Madonna - Celebration 
Madonna - Celebration
Madonna - Celebration
Madonna - Celebration
Madonna - Celebration 
I Am Because We Are 
Filth and Wisdom 
I Am Because We Are 
Miles Away 
Sticky & Sweet 
Madonna Confessions 
Madonna 2009 
Give It 2 Me 
Give It 2 Me 
Hard Candy 
Hard Candy 
4 Minutes 
4 Minutes 
I think this story made Anjimile feel inspired and she bring us to the girls and boys the fortress to not give up to not stop, to be who we are, bewaring our culture, never deleting it.
madonna, tambien eres inspiracion, gracias por ayudarnos a crecer como personas
Hats off to all the women who made and continue to make a difference in their communities. Thank god their numbers are growing. Although I have never met her in person, to me Madonna is the greatest inspiration. The world is a judgmental and dismissive place. Madonna inspired me to cross the borderlines that are set by judgmental societies. She helped me to overcome prejudices.
“I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through, didn’t know how lost I was, until I found you”; Not ashamed.
Thank you Madonna.
Thank you Madonna for not only for being an exemple, but for being a reality. I’ve always prayed for you to grow up as a great artist and as a great person, and now I can’t say if the artist is bigger than the person you are… Thank you for giving that example, as many others you’ve been giving since many years ago.
Love from Spain.
I agree Heartbeat, she grew up emotionally in all respects, she struggled for it very hard, she needed self respect and all and later it transformed into a giving personality.
She is wonderful.
htv???gaga is a shit..even rihanna is better than gaga;)
Oh Lady Gaga sooooo needs to be voted off the island!
Vivement l’ouverture de cette ecole au Malawi,Madonna(Esther),a tellement change…elle fait un travail formidable et tout ca est tres certoinement en relation avec l’enseignement de la Kabbale…le Partage.Vivement la Paix dans le monde.
SALOPE
Very excited about the opening of the Malawi Academy for Girls someday.
why?
Cant wait to hear another woman’s cover of madonna’s “Oh Father”, Sia will release her album very soon. stay tuned.
The Queen of Pop is dead (Madonna), long live the Queen (Lady Gaga)
FUCK YOU
is that all you got from reading the story, let me guess you didnt even read it. Let’s be realistic shall we please, Lady Gaga is a brillant performer and artist. If you like Lady Gaga all well and good but why come on a Madonna site just to say Lady Gaga is the queen. It’s rather pathetic and speaks volumes, for you to come on here wasting your time and energy trying to big up Lady Gaga. I think it’s because you know that Madonna is and will always be the queen of pop, so you feel threatened by this and have to say something against Madonna to make yourself feel better. GROW UP PLEASE. BTW – how can you call Lady Gaga the queen when she has been out like 2 years, takes alot more than that to be a princess let alone a queen!!!!
Madonna is the Queen of Pop no matter if she ever puts out another record or not. Lady Gaga is the Queen of Today, but will never be the Queen of Tommorow. Why? There’s not enough substance, creativity and longevity to ever surpass or even match Madonna’s achievements.
For more than 25 years this woman has defined popculture for women and still does. No matter if you liked Hard Candy or not. No matter if you went to see the Sticky and Sweet tour or not. No matter if you like her new boyfriend, her new look or even her hair. This woman will go down in history as the most groundbreaking female ever in popculture.
I’m glad Lady Gaga is so succesfull now, because she( and lots of others) have Madonna to thank for that. She paved the way a long time ago. Madonna is and always will be the Queen, even if she would decide today to give it all up. Not Gaga but Britney would be her princess…
My very tiny penis is very very offended by “be realistic please” ‘s comment
Dead or alive Madonna THE ultimate queen of pop universe, has been, is and will always remain a legend. Madonna’s mark on this world and on you will not go away.
Unlike the haters, as far as the little gaga is concerned, Gaga= queen of nothing so her being dead or alive doesn’t really matter to us.
Too long…
) loool
madonna eres la mujer mas famosa del universo
te amo gracias por tu mensaje
thanks!