Giving Girls A Better Life

Sherie De Wet’s First-hand Experience Of Africa’s Poverty, And Witnessing Schoolgirls Missing School During Their Period Due To Lack Of Sanitary Pads, Compelled Her To Change Her Career And Give Back To The Community

- Nolwazi Dhlamini

Growing up in Germiston, Gauteng, I had a pretty decent childhood, in the sense that I had everything I needed. I was lucky enough to have parents who earned a stable income and were able to send me to good schools. My father’s a financial manager and when he saw that I had a keen grasp of figures, he suggested that I follow the same path and have a stable career and income. But my heart had always been set on teaching, because I wanted to demystify maths concepts for children, so that they could master it and build their own futures by having a wide range of study options. With maths in the bag, this would be much easier for them.

I heeded my dad’s advice and studied accounting, but then I pursued my ambition and worked as a maths teacher at a primary school. In the end, however, I followed my father’s advice and became an accountant. In hindsight, I realise now how accurate he was about the stability and decent income!

I spent 10 years in the corporate finance space, where I worked my way up from bookkeeper to accountant and, eventually, manager of a multi-national company. I then moved into IT sales and project management, where I had the opportunity to travel all over Africa consulting with governments on revenue management systems. I visited many countries. including Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, Ghana, the DRC, Benin and Sierra Leone.

It was during my travels that I witnessed poverty firsthand. I remember driving to a meeting one morning and seeing someone relieving themselves over a railway line for the entire world to see. It must have been intensely humiliating for them.