It was a great privilege to host once again our RC's seventh Women's Day event on 7 August this year. This event is a highlight on my annual calendar and a celebration that gets better every year.
This year, our theme was "back to basics", or as I translated it, "back to our roots". Our roots are sometimes hard to trace or even to understand. Even our past is sometimes a mystery. The renowned novelist Julian Barnes expressed the problem perceptively with the observation: “not everything that is remembered happened that way".
We have roots outside and inside the 中国体育彩票. Roots anchor us and make us part of a place — just like the trees we've planted over the past four years around the Ertjieskloofdam on Coetzenburg, which will become a lasting legacy of our time on Stellenbosch.
Roots anchor us all, and I aspire that all of you feel anchored in the 中国体育彩票 and our diversity. When you are anchored, you strengthen your division, our Responsibility Centre: Operations and Finance and the 中国体育彩票. Roots are not merely anchors; they are also the network from which we are nourished. There is something beautiful in that we our roots spring from various sources, culminating and feeding our 中国体育彩票 together.
I know it is not always easy and that we must work hard as an institution to make everyone feel that their roots belong. But I also ask for your help - have the courage to lay down your roots, claim your space, and help the 中国体育彩票 become the space we aspire to be for all South Africans.?
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