The Power of Networking

There was the scarcity of mackerel in the market in Cameroon. Being one of the highly consumed species of fish, it causes a stir. As a journalist, I went out to sample women’s opinions on this. At a cold store, I came across a woman, one of my interviewees. At first she never wanted to speak but I persisted and she gave in, granting me the interview on how she was coping with the scarcity. I never knew I was to come across her again.
Months later, we met again at a political campaigning training workshop organized for women. She had taken note of my face and came up to me. When I was sampling the opinions of participants at the workshop on women in politics, again, she was among. We departed and as divine providence will put it, we met again last month when the American Embassy was celebrating the women’s history month in our region under the theme “The Gender Agenda, Gaining Momentum”. I took some photos of her and we exchanged addresses. When I sent the photos to her, she was happy and sent me the link to World Pulse and I registered after reading through the home pages.
I think from my journey up here I have learned that;
• women need to persist to get results
• Exchange contacts and create more contacts to get exposure
• Love one another and share and the gender agenda will gain more momentum
In a hall of more than a hundred women at the Women History month celebration, five of us were seated at a table. The trainer, the cultural Affairs Specialist at the US Embassy Madame Viban Gladys came up to us and called us her favorite participants and future leaders because we were the youngest, participated actively and above all were versed with and using social media tools. Other women were asked to visit our table and me during break to learn something on the internet. One of the participants, a leading female leader in the political history of Cameroon who I once interviewed told me when she created a facebook account, her children asked her what she was doing on facebook and she had to leave. I will like to see more women IT literate and sensitized on the importance of social networking. This I am doing and will do in the little way I can.