ROCKBlue’s WULUW Initiative Coordinator Akhona Rozani

Besides ROCKBlue’s assistance to water and sanitation service providers, we have four Initiatives to give back to the community we serve. They include:

• Knowledge Management via practical tips/blogs
• Utility Performance Enhancement Series of workshops
• Support of the AguaRating tool for utility benchmarking
• WULUW female leadership empowerment

With WULUW is the understanding that when women take leadership positions – including those in urban WASH (water and sanitation and hygiene) – the organizations to which they are associated benefit. Unfortunately, there are often cultural and historical obstacles for women to reach leadership positions with urban WASH service providers. Women are underrepresented in urban WASH and hold few if any positions of leadership.

WULUW’s goal is to assist and significantly increase the number female leaders in urban WASH. This is done through four activities:

1. collecting/ disseminating informational /motivational stories/examples about female leadership in urban WASH,
2. mentorship between existing female leaders and aspiring future female leaders,
3. professional career guidance, networking and cross-linkages and
4. connecting aspiring future female leaders with educational opportunities and resources.

We could not do this without our WULUW Coordinator, Akhona Rozani. In addition to the work for ROCKBlue, she is a student at Stellenbosch University for a PDip (Hons) in Environmental Management. She also holds a BSc in Earth Sciences from Stellenbosch University.

She’s been a leader her entire life including assignments with Leadership Beyond Borders, Elize Botha Women in Leadership. She has tutored students and worked at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. We are thrilled to have her lead the WULUW Initiative.