Women’s Month with Nicky Namntu
Featured image: Nicky Namtu by Julia Evans of Daily Maverick
This women’s month, we take a close look at Nicky Namntu, who is a Field Manager with Plett Shark Spotters. Nicky admits that it took her a while to get where she is now, and that she had to dig deep to find a career path she really loves and has passion for.
“After high school, I enrolled at South Cape College for business management which I never completed because it was not my passion. From there I worked in the retail industry for seven years but that was also not a career path I wanted to pursue,” she explains.
Choosing a career path should be one of the things that all schools help learners with, from an early age, as Nicky explains that she searched for where her passion and interests lay but she never felt content with the career paths she chose until she joined the WESSA Learnership Programme, finding herself comfortable in the nature conservation industry. After three years in the WESSA learnership, Nicky obtained her certificate in Environmental Education.
However in 2020, as with so many others, she found herself unemployed after the Covid pandemic. But she never lost hope or confidence in herself, “In 2022, I saw an advertisement for Plett Shark Spotters’ vacancies. I was so excited even though I did not yet know all the details of the vacancy advertisement – I just knew that it was something to do with nature conservation!” Nicky says.
She further explains that journey with Shark Spotters – which began in 2022 when the Bitou Municipality partnered with the Plett Shark Action Group and Cape Town’s Shark Spotters has been an exciting one: “The first day we had to do a physical training exercise: we had to walk 9.2 km. It was an intense training exercise planned out by our manager. I almost fainted that day but I never gave up. I stood up and carried on with the walk with my team members motivating me to not give up.”
When you love something, the passion that you have for that thing will never allow you to quit no matter how difficult it is to keep on at times. Doing what you love pushes you to do even better. Whatever career path you choose, make sure it is something you truly have a passion and love for. Can you imagine doing what you love for the rest of your life and get paid for it?
“I want to say to young people, don’t choose career paths because of money but choose because you have passion for that career and watch how good it feels to do what you love with financial freedom,” says Nicky. In this women’s month Nicky Namntu has a message for all the young women in Plettenberg Bay: “Women should stand up and start showing up. The world is not waiting for anyone else but it is waiting for us. It is our time to stand up and take charge.”
Happy women’s month to all the women of our beautiful town: your time is now, let us break grounds and remember to go after your dreams even if it takes you years to reach where you want to be, look how Nicky Namntu has followed her dreams and these should be the footsteps that we all follow.
