Nyasha Rukazhanga-Leboho

Nyasha Rukazhanga-Leboho has been with the SABONET Project for just over four years, having started as the SABONET Administrative Officer at the National Herbarium, Pretoria, on 1 October 1998. We received notice of her resignation with great excitement, not because we are glad to see her leave, but because we are pleased to see a well-pruned tree bear so many fruit. On 1 April 2003, Nyasha started in the position of Senior Personnel Officer at the National Botanical Institute in Pretoria, South Africa. In her new position, she is responsible for Human Resource matters, a career direction she has been dreaming of for years. We are sure that she will rise to this new endeavour with all the inspiration and commitment she has shown as a member of SABONET.

As a SABONET contract worker, Nyasha was very enthusiastic about her work. Over the four years she impressed us with her particularly effective work capacity, and her ability to successfully manage the communication and administration between the Regional Office and the participating institutions in the ten southern African countries. Not only did the SABONET Project recognise the quality of her work and management, but the NBI (now SANBI) could not have done without her efficient services during the last two years of her stay as secretary to the Directorate: Gardens and Horticultural Services.

As the SABONET Administration Officer, Nyasha organised various SABONET Steering Committee meetings where she took minutes in such a manner that even the Steering Committee could understand what they had decided! During her time with us, she booked the flights and accommodation of probably more than 1,000 people to attend courses, workshops, meetings, and internships in southern Africa. So efficient was her networking ability and service delivery to the participating institutions, that no matter where we travelled in southern Africa, the first words from our hosts would be “How are you and how is Nyasha?”. In fact, these were only a few of her responsibilities, and her duties behind the scenes would be too numerous to mention here.

As a grass widow (her husband’s company sends him to Angola for long periods), Nyasha has to take care of her son by herself, while working a full day from 7:30–16:00. In addition, the period 2001–2002 was most probably the busiest in the history of the project, resulting in her having to take home large amounts of work. At the same time, she was also enrolled for the second year of a part-time B.Comm. degree. Despite all this, not once were any of her SABONET duties not completed!

Nyasha was always friendly and willing to assist with any problem. She contributed substantially to the team spirit of the Secretariat and has left her mark in the project. Thanks for your enthusiasm and hard work Nyasha!

We wish you the best of luck with your future career and we will definitely miss you a lot!

Nyasha Rukazhanga-Leboho was the last of the original SABONET Regional Office staff members to pack her bags and move on. Christopher Willis left the project in October 2000 and Carina Haasbroek left in June 2001 (see SABONET News 6(3): 138–141 & 7(2): 105).