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Home / Ilke Platt-Akwenye on opening doors for young people
Ilke Platt-Akwenye on opening doors for young people
2018-01-17Staff Report 2 Pinehas Nakaziko Windhoek-After opening a public relations business last year, founder Ilke Platt-Akwenye says she is now focused on using her business to empower other young people by giving internships to students. “I have always wanted to allow my work to empower and assist others in the same field. Poiyah Media has allowed me to do just that,” she says, adding that she has a wonderful team of four who have been able to own projects within months of joining, adding, “It has allowed me to open doors for them and expose their talents too.” Platt-Akwenye’s company, Poiyah Media provides public relations and communication services. She aims at providing internships to third and final years students at the University of Namibia (UNAM) and the Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST). “This includes two intake sessions per year of maximum of four students over a period of six months (minimal and could be extended). This will allow the team to gain valuable experience and actually drive projects by themselves. Our long-term goal is to retain those that we train and develop to continue the professionalism of Poiyah Media.” She says finding the right team was the basic challenge to initiating her company, but she says she managed to do so and does not regret the selection. Besides internships, Poiyah Media wants to work with small and medium enterprises and all young entrepreneurs who are doing great things in their respective fields, but need to be exposed through public relations and communication campaigns. Platt-Akwenye is no novice to the communication industry. A graduate of media from the University of Namibia, where she also completed her Masters in Media, majoring in communications, Platt-Akwenye worked at Namibian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) as a television presenter, radio presenter and eventually as a public relations officer. She also worked as a marketing and communication consultant at Sanlam and at Old Mutual Namibia as a communication and transformation manager. “The experience and practicality especially in a field such as media has benefitted me greatly. It allowed me to expose my skills and allow the public to trust/prefer my expertise. It has also smoothly transitioned my career from the corporate world into entrepreneurship. The network that I’ve accumulated has opened a lot of doors for me,” she says. Last year she made media headlines when she sent out a message of support towards 16 Days of Activism against gender based violence, by speaking of her own personal experience, as a victim. “This was very hard for me to believe, since it is something that I was never exposed to. I grew up in a household full of love, centred on faith and happiness. The saddest part about my ordeal is that my sons had to witness this in our own home. This is something that I never wished for my sons to ever see first-hand and I have taken action to never allow it to happen again. “I have been brought up knowing that it’s not acceptable at all for a man to raise his hand to a woman. I have been brought up to know that it’s wrong to accept it, even if it happened once. I have been brought up to know right from wrong and walk away from such toxic environments.” She adds that a lot of prayers helped her to overcome “this horrible life”. “I have always been strong in faith, but this incident has made my faith even stronger than what it was before,” she says of the ordeal. 2018-01-17Staff Report 2
