The Voice Of Power

                                                   In honour of Yvonne van den Dool

“During 1947 in the Matric class at Parktown High School for Girls in Johannesburg,

we were informed about career choices for women.

The only options that would be taken seriously were to be a nurse,

a teacher, a secretary, or of course — you could get married.”

But one girl heard more than instruction.

She heard the pulse of possibility.

Not the hum of typewriters or whispered compromise,

but the roar of engines and the silent dare of sky.

She chose movement over stillness.

Power over permission.

She climbed into a cockpit not meant for her

and rewrote the narrative — mile by fearless mile.

This is the voice of Yvonne van den Dool —

the first woman in South Africa to earn a Senior Commercial Pilot’s License.

               

         

Her power was not loud, but it lifted mountains.

It flew low over tsetse-infested valleys

and high into thin, record-breaking air.

She flew with grit in her bones

and grace in her hands —

a woman whose altitude matched her attitude,

whose courage cleared runways

for generations of daughters and granddaughters to rise.

Her wings were her words.

Her flight, a defiance.

From the kitchen table to cockpits high above Kariba Dam,

from doorless huts near jungle runways

to altitude records at 19,300 feet,

she lived her truth in lift, thrust, and bold descent.

Yvonne flew not just for herself,

but for the women who would come after —

her daughters, her granddaughters,

and for every girl told to sit still and dream small.

Her power wasn’t only in what she did,

but in what she refused to be denied.

Not defined by limits,

but by the lift of her own becoming.

On this Mother's Day, we honour not just a pilot —

but a pioneer, a matriarch, a mapmaker of new skies.

We remember that power wears many forms:

Sometimes it wears a flight suit.

Sometimes it wears a smile.

And sometimes it becomes a legacy that flies on forever.

On this Mother's Day, we honour a matriarch of courage,

a pioneer of the possible,

and a woman whose story reminds us:

When the world offers you limits,

you can answer with flight.

                                                                                                   

                                                                                          With Pleasure

                                                                                           Debbie Rosas

                                                                                           Co-Creator and Founder Nia Technique