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Jayant's daughter, Nimisha
Madhvani, Bryn Mawr's first Ugandan
undergraduate (class 1978), was appointed by Uganda's dynamic and
successful president, Yoweri Museveni, to be first
secretary of trade and
investment officer with the embassy of Uganda in Washington
with the brief of attracting and promoting new investment. With fortitude and
commitment.
Nimisha continually promotes an up-to-date and realistic picture of Uganda
and its progressive policies toward business. Nimisha, who is the only
Asian to serve in Uganda's foreign service, speaks of her experience as a
third-generation Ugandan woman of Asian origin, born in an extremely
traditional, male-dominated family from Gujarat, that emigrated to Uganda
at the beginning of the last century: "I have had to continuously keep the
family alert to my abilities being equal, if not better, to theirs," she
says, while lauding her mother and late father for being "my sources of
inspiration and support to take on the challenges that face Indian women-
from Laxmi to liability to asset (In Indian mythology, Laxmi is the goddess
of prosperity. Through tradition, a girl born in the family is to some
extent viewed as an embodiment of the great virtues of Laxmi and therefore
requiring the family to be responsible for her exclusive care).
I am one of
those most fortunate women to be where I am today, but it has been a
continuous challenge," Madhvani says. "It was a dream when I wrote my final
political science thesis at Bryn Mawr that I would love to work in East
Africa's politics, but reiterated that could never happen as I was a double
minority-a woman, and an Asian woman at that." She recalls that when she
wanted to "work in my family business, and do something concrete for my
people, contribute to the land from which we took," her uncles and her
brother just would not hear of it. "I mean, they just got it all wrong,"
she says. "But as they start producing daughters, there is a stark
attitudinal change." Nimisha says that when she was offered a job at the
Ugandan Embassy in Washington, D.C., by President Museveni-quite by
accident, during a meeting her family had with the president-the male
members in her family "had a difficult time coming to grips with this." |
