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https://100years100women.blog.gov.uk/2018/04/19/daxa-odedra/

Daxa Odedra - the woman coaching other women back into sport

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Picture of Daxa on holiday standing on a balcony with a beautiful valley and a terracota roofed house in the background.

Profile

Job: Lead Project Manager

Organisation: Home Office

Years in Public Service: 10

My mother is...

now a qualified and experienced carer for elderly people. Her success follows a long working life doing odd jobs before finally securing a career in the care profession.

We migrated to the UK when I was just 2 years old, and I have memories of both of my parents working hard. And by hard I do not just mean long hours and 7-day weeks but doing jobs that did not necessarily have opportunities to progress. Their main focus was to earn enough to secure a better future for me and my siblings.

For as long as I can remember my mother juggled a full time job with raising three children. She did all of the school runs, attended every school performance and represented both herself and my dad at every parents’ evening.

Me in a paragraph

By day I am a project manager, delivering technology projects to maintain the national critical infrastructure. I love my job but the real me is the one you will meet outside of work.

I am an artist, and I am passionate about Netball. I play Netball and coach young children and women who want to get back into sports or want to start something new. My passion has taken me overseas working with a charity to teach the sport at grassroots to under privileged children and young people.

This is what makes me tick – making a tangible difference.

My role

My role is to manage and maintain the national critical infrastructure, without which the security of the UK would be compromised.

I have been lucky enough to work all over the UK and across Europe, ranging from Portsmouth, to Inverness and Paris to Brussels, giving me the opportunity to travel. Albeit working really long days, but the exposure and experience have been worth it.

If I had a magic wand, what I would do to accelerate gender equality?

I would set a quota for the number of women interviewed for senior roles, making it compulsory for women to be represented fairly at all levels.

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