Keikantse Shumba’s career is blossoming and 2023 continues to prove to be her year. In less than two months, she has bagged first two accolades under her name one locally and recent other at an international stage.
Shumba has enjoyed most years of her career as a journalist without winning any award. However, in less than two months the elegant Shumba has seen her career take a turn for greatness. She scooped her first award locally at the Botswana Women’s Awards as the Media Women of the Year Award. A month later, she won another award as the 100 Leading/ Emerging Women at the Focus African Tourism Investment Conference held at Casablanca Morocco on June 27 this year. In an interview with The Monitor, c revealed that never in her life did she ever imagine that her journalism path would turn out this way. “As a journalist all I ever dreamt of was basically being a story teller, breaking news, making the best headlines and it was never about recognition cause as we always say journalism is thankless job which mean all we ever care about is the story,” she stated. Shumba, who doubles as the founder of Argus Online, echoed that winning her first awards in her career is really a surreal moment for her. “I have never dreamt of winning an award, so you can imagine how speechless I was when I received the first local award a month ago being media women of the year award,” she said.
She further said when the international nomination arrived, she could not believe what was before her eyes and was overwhelmed by emotions. “I generally consider myself as a composed person but when I received an email, I was a beautiful mess of emotions and I had to read the email more than five times just so I can be sure. I was beyond delighted that not only have I been recognised in my own country but internationally as well and this time amongst top 100 emerging and leading women in Africa,” an elated Shumba said. She exclaimed that what made her more emotional was the fact someone who is a stranger to her put her name forward to stand a chance at this accolade. Shumba said: “What is interesting is that I was not even aware of who nominated me and when I enquired, I was told I was nominated by someone within the Southern African region, not necessarily from Botswana and this alone brought me to tears. The mere fact that someone out there saw me fit and deserving of the nomination,” she added. The international award winner elucidated that winning the award can contribute immensely to her career as she feels it brings more opportunities. “Receiving an award brings more benefits than just winning, aside from making me feel good, it can also offer great boost to business as it brings credibility and opens doors to new opportunities for many of us.”
On top of the fact that the award can open doors for one, Shumba revealed that they also serve as a sense of validation and confidence booster. “This award is an acknowledgement of a job well done especially that many at times one gets to question if indeed they are doing the right and this is the perfect reassurance one needs,” she expressed.
