The first administration made great strides in educating more women. However, now many women are staying home to focus on their families, which often… - Inonge Mbikusita-Lewanika

Begin with education and ensure that entrepreneurship is encouraged, as God created each of us uniquely.

My father was the first president of the African National Congress of Zambia. And my grandfather, you may be interested to know, was the patron of actually the South African African National Congress in 1912. So I come from a political family. And my father was a member of Parliament. Our parents brought us up to listen to news, so we did have an idea when we were growing up of what was happening out in the world, which I found interesting. But at an early age--I was 13, 14--after watching my father being in politics, I decided that I didn't want to be a politician.

I was brought up by politicians, and my parents were active in the politics of the country. My mother did a lot of work with women and trying to improve the lot of women. She demonstrated her own participation in public life, first of all by going to school--and not only to primary school, but to a higher school, which was very rare in those days. And then she also was a professional woman. She was a teacher. She was a founding member of YWCA in Zambia. She was the first woman in Northern Rhodesia--that's what Zambia was called before--to register as a voter, the first African woman to do that.