Ashle Skaftouros is a phenomenon. After meeting the founder of Kangamama, you simply cannot forget her. She is the poster child of a beautiful African woman. Her a little crazy, a bit cheeky, but always inspiring attitude causes a shift in the atmosphere around her. At least, this is the impression I got when I first encountered her many years ago. She stood out as someone who was destined to make a difference in her world.

Like a lot of women in our generation, I wake up each morning and refresh my social media feeds to get an update on the world. Mostly it’s stuff that I don’t really need to know or about people I’m not so close to. But I find these people and their lives interesting anyway. Often I end up scrolling mindlessly, not only first thing after waking up or falling asleep but also countless times in between…. and you know what, it’s exhausting.

I have a daughter who is 17 months old. She is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and full of wonder, usually running in the face of danger and always in search of adventure. As her mum, I love her free spirit even though it is tiring to chase after her when she ventures away from the playground in search of something more. Raising her away from the land I was raised in has brought about its own set of challenges.

I just knew I had to follow the smile in his golden eyes into the sunset. It involved jumping on a plane, while barely knowing the inner workings of his soul or where on Google’s map he lived. It involved a great deal of bravery, a trusting heart, money I wasn’t sure I had, faith the size of a mustard seed  and a spirit of adventure.

As a South African Indian girl born and raised in Durban, I can say that for the most part I have lived a sheltered and somewhat privileged life… I say privileged because even if there was a life out there that I did not know about, I was so sheltered and naive that it didn’t bother me.

There are different shades of South African women. From caramel, to yellow bone, to peach and beige to brown to melanin envy dark and then 50 shades in between. All of these women are truly beautiful, with a sassy spirit that is required to overcome their back story of struggle and abomination.

When I heard about the theme for Women’s Day this year, ‘Be bold for change,’ I thought, ‘Oh, wow that’s so cool.’ Actually, that’s my general reaction to most things. But then I gave it more thought, especially about how change has affected my life, world politics and just about everything.