HR specialist Pastor Esau Banda shares success tips with new University of Malawi graduates

A Reserve Bank of Malawi (RBM) Human Resources Specialist on Wednesday asked University of Malawi (UNIMA) graduating students not to be ashamed ofstarting their careers in a small way saying greatness is built from the small successes one makes.

Pastor Esau Banda was delivering his inspiration speech on behalf of the university’s alumni in Zomba during the graduation of 352 third cohort of the university’s 2018/19 academic year in different disciplines.

Aware that university college students have high hopes and ambitions of starting with a huge salary or very high positions at work, he cautioned that life is not always what they expectedwhile in college.

“Never be ashamed to start small, even to start with a small salary or business. Be ready to start small,” he said, adding that greatness is an accumulation of small steps made in life.

This was one of the ‘nine success principles’ Esau Banda shared with the graduating students in his motivation speech which he said would assist them to succeed in life academically and professionally.

He also advised the new graduands to uphold integrity and the fear of God. He said luck of the two in most people has led to 30 per cent of the country’s resources being lost to corruption and other unethical behaviours.

According to the HR specialist, competence needs to be complemented with one’s sound character.

Banda also said being flexible is vital in ones’ ability to take up opportunities of new careers whose doors have openedregardless of their difference from one’s first degree.

“I remember sitting right in this hall (Great Hall) about 19 years ago as a graduand of Bachelor of Accountancy from the Polytechnic.

“I had no clear picture of what the future world had for me. First, I wanted to be an accomplished accountant, but as human destiny has it, I ended up being a Human Resources Specialist,” he said, adding this was a good lesson to learn from– that one should not be rigid in life.

Banda, a Human Resources Administration Manager with RBM,also stressed the need for the new graduates to have a vision, saying in the absence of a vision “there are divisions and diversions”.

He said it is like one does not know what they want to achieve in life.

Esau Banda is popularly known by most as Pastor Esau Banda who preaches on radio and television. He told the third congregation he is author of 65 Christian Books published over a period of five years.

While with Reserve Bank of Malawi, he studied Masters in Business Administration at Leeds University in UK where he graduated with a distinction and received an award as the best MBA student of his class.

Other success principles he shared with the new graduates are being focused to achieve one’s goal; embracing a possibility mentality and being prepared to confront challenges in order to overcome them.

He stressed that a person must confront challenges because “life is not a fanfare but warfare”.

Finally, he appealed to the new graduates to build strong and stable families, saying one’s success needs to be manifested in the family institution first.

He then told the graduates obtaining the first degree is not an end goal in itself, but a major step in a longer journey to the world of countless opportunities but with challenges along the way.

The 352 students were awarded certificates, diplomas and degrees in different programmes including Engineering, Journalism, Accountancy, Business Communication and Technical Education.

Others were Pharmacy, Biomedical Sciences, Environmental Health, Management Information Science, Information Technology and Law among others.

In his remarks, Professor John Saka who presided over the function for the last time on behalf of UNIMA’s Chancellor (President Peter Mutharika) as the university’s Vice-Chancellor, said he would continue to work collaboratively with all public universities for the betterment of the country.

Prof Saka was recently appointed new Vice-Chancellor of Mzuzu University succeeding Dr Robert Ridley

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