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From a small-town girl to a city girl

Monique Adams

Hevelina Erasmus grew up in the small mining town of Arandis.

This is where she started with primary school and completed her high school education in 2014 at Kolin Foundation Secondary School.

Once completing her high school education, she went to the University of Namibia (Unam) for a Bachelor of Arts degree and later on specialised in industrial/organisational psychology.

In March 2019 she started working at Old Mutual as a human resource intern for six months and in the same year she became a personal assistant to one of the national sales managers at Old Mutual.

Currently busy with a master’s degree in industrial/organisational psychology at Unam, Hevelina looks forward to completing her qualification next year, 2022.

As an industrial psychology intern at BDO, she is mainly responsible for assisting with the design, development and implementation of organisational development strategies and practices for clients to improve organisational efficiency.

“I provide advisory/consultancy functions to clients and work with many levels of stakeholders to enable change success to ensure transfer of learning and optimisation of employee potential in alignment to business strategy,” she says.

There is no typical day for the young Hevelina Erasmus, as at times she assists with marketing and other times she will be working on training and development materials.

When asked how she prepared for this new appointment, she smiles and says that her interest is deeply rooted in this current role.

She is looking forward to furthering her studies in the same field.

“Working within human resources has also prepared me for this role. Throughout the years I have worked on boosting my personal skills such as emotional intelligence, problem solving, communications and research skills by doing online short courses and working with a mentor,” she says.

One thing she has learned through her career is to never stop learning. One of her challenges is adapting to the highly corporate environment, but her desire and willingness to succeed is bigger than the challenges she faces.

Her biggest accomplishment to date is obtaining her bachelor’s degree and scoring her current internship, making her look forward to the future.

“Always grab any opportunity that comes your way with both hands and be passionate about your career, because on days when you lack motivation or feel challenged, it is your passion that will help you overcome it all,” she advises fellow young people.