Young Difference Makers S2 E7 - Climbing Beyond the Ladder: Mishka Hajee's Quest for Community Progress

Hi , my name is Mishka . I'm a chartered accountant from South Africa . I'm registered with the South African Institute of Chartered Accountants and I currently live and work in Dublin , Ireland . I decided to become a chartered accountant Apparently . One of my oldest friends told me when we first met , apparently when we were five years old .

Apparently I said to her when we first met in preschool that I introduced myself and said I wanted to become a chartered accountant . I seriously doubt a five-year-old would have known what a chartered accountant was , but I probably heard it from a parent or from someone in the community .

But I do believe that the community and the people that I've been mentored by was really what led me to becoming a chartered accountant .

Also , just given my background , I was also looking for a career path that provided both financial stability and also the opportunity to explore different avenues within the sphere of commerce and becoming a chartered accountant made sense in that regard . Yes , becoming a chartered accountant definitely involves understanding numbers . I think that's what it is .

It's understanding the story that numbers tell you . It's understanding financial data , and so when you qualify as a chartered accountant , you're given the necessary knowledge base and skill set to understand what is what currently is , and your skill set then allows you to make decisions based on the data that's provided .

So I mean to be honest , the last time I number crunched , so to say , was probably in university . You know , we've got technology now we use a lot of Excel , for example , in the workspace . So it's less about number crunching and more about understanding what numbers tell us to allow us to make decisions and be impactful .

So I think , first and foremost in fact , I think this is what really got me excited about qualifying as a chartered accountant is integrity is a very big part of being a chartered accountant . Chartered accountants are seen as trusted professionals in the world , across the workspace .

Most of our professional bodies all have a code of conduct , and so the values , particularly on integrity and accountability , have been very important , are important to me as a person , and so that aligns really the qualification aligns really well with my personal values and being , you know , a trusted leader in the community and in the commerce space .

So a lot of the community-based work that I've ever been involved with or am currently involved with a lot of it , has to do , first of all , with my mom .

So my mom is a social worker and I was raised by a single mother , and so when you're raised with someone in that field , you kind of grow up with community work and civil engagement , and so because of that , I've been able to now , I think , take what I've learned as a child growing up and as a teenager , having gone from doing hands-on work in the community

to now being able to take my knowledge and skills that I've learned , that I have now as a chartered accountant , and use it more , I suppose , in terms of maybe running organizations , understanding how governance plays a role in in NGOs and NPOs , understanding how sustainability now plays a role in keeping NGOs and NPOs running , because you know , we see it in the

world that NGOs at the moment are facing the crisis of sustainability , and I've seen it particularly in South Africa . And so , with the knowledge I've obtained as a CA and what I've seen with the NGOs that I've worked with , I'm now looking towards trying to find better ways of making NGOs more sustainable .

In my own experience , I've only been a chartered accountant for about four or five years now .

We're fully qualified and I've had the opportunity and the privilege of being able to work not just in South Africa but in the UK , in London and in Dublin as well , and that is really just because being a chartered accountant , having that CASA behind my name , has really opened a lot of doors .

It's been less a case of me having to look for opportunities and more the opportunities finding CAs the minute they qualify , and I know lots of accountants , lots of chartered accountants , that have the same story . In terms of NGOs . I've been fortunate enough now that I've been based in Dublin for just over four years now .

I've had the opportunity to work with NGOs and NPOs in the Republic of Ireland , one being the business in the community where I am an EPIC mentor .

This program , essentially , has been set up to help asylum seekers in the Republic of Ireland look for work , and so I've been able to take my own experiences as a migrant from South Africa and Ireland and use those skills that I have and the experiences that I have to help asylum seekers and refugees in Ireland .

I'm also responsible for sustainability at the Muslim Sisters of Air organisation based in Dublin , and so you know I wouldn't be in this position had I not qualified as a chartered accountant and had the opportunity to move to Ireland . In terms of challenges , you know , looking at it from different angles .

Number one you know I was raised by a single mother and so we faced many financial barriers when I was growing up and in order to overcome that I was again very fortunate and I guess , again the CA profession was , I guess , always my calling .

There were a number of CAs in the community in which I was raised who kind of , I guess , in some way , kind of took a liking to me and effectively started mentoring me at a very young age , and so because of that I've been able to leverage off the CA community in South Africa .

They actually , you know , privately funded my university studies and you know , without them I wouldn't be here .

And so I guess , firstly , networking and again a skill that's very important for chartered accountants , and , you know , also remembering the community you came from , that really helped me to overcome that particular challenge , but also , I think , and perhaps overcome that particular challenge .

But also , I think , and perhaps once we qualify , we tend to forget about it , but the journey to becoming a chartered accountant is not the easiest . You know this qualification , you really do earn it . And so you know university had its challenges .

You know the board exams are quite challenging as well and , speaking to other trainees or other people who had similar challenges to the ones I had whether it was , you know , related to academics or just , you know , stress management , resilience within ourselves , and that's incredibly important but I think leaning off from the community and the networks that you build

on your journey towards becoming a CA really played an important role for me . Believe , believe in yourself and in in your destiny is incredibly important , no matter what what you think . The path you think you might want to lead to get to your end goal may not necessarily be the path that you take , but your end goal .

As long as you keep your end goal in mind , that's the most important thing .