A Personal Interview with Natasha Taneka – Session 1
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): Natasha Taneka (Unpublished)
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2016/05/05
To start, let’s talk about your personal life and how that lead into your professional life.
I am of African descent, particularly Zimbabwean heritage. My family immigrated to Canada. So, I am very much influenced by travel. I feel like I really have a diverse background as I have lived in 4 or 5 countries. That influenced me to choose to do my degree and my studies in international relations and it lead me to focus on immigration and human rights. From that point, I have always had an interest in working with the United Nations or volunteering for NGOs. I feel like I’ve always had this connection with development and growth.
So, it sort of lead me to focus on procurement and connecting suppliers with businesses and making sure everyone is involved is integrated in a fair manner. That’s how I summarize how my background influences my work in a professional manner.
What about your family, in general, what kind of things do they do?
Yea! I would definitely say that my mom and dad sort of set a track for me in terms of travelling and education. My mother left Zimbabwe when she was 17 to do two degrees in Australia. One degree in Halifax, Canada. And then finally her PhD in the United States.That was definitely cemented in me the importance of education and to never far travel. And that also for my father he ended up doing his PhD out at Imperial College in the UK. It’s kind of funny that I’m all grown up and now here in the UK.
I remember being a child and being like, “Yea, my dad studied long ago and like in London.” Not myself here yet, here I am, my path in college. I think to myself, “Wow!” It’s one of those things that they never grew up with dreams of growing up and seeing so many lands. My mother is based in New Zealand and travels quite often. And I think it’s been instilled in me that the sky is the limit to travel for work, for opportunities, because where you are sometimes isn’t enough and you shouldn’t hold yourself back or limit your dreams.
That would be something that I got from my parent. As for my grandparents, my grandparents both had feisty personalities based on the stories that I hear when they were younger. It has always been an impression on me to never take crap as it is, and go forth and you could always do more.
Your father is a PhD at Imperial College, London. What was it in? And your mother’s in the United States, what was it in?
Okay, so, my father was mineralogy, which is a PhD in engineering that focuses on minerals such as precious stones, basically, that come from the earth. As a kid, he was good at mathematics and science and coming from a poor family. It is the scholarship that ended up landing him at Imperial College, London. So, his PhD is basically focused on precious stones and turning precious metals into iron. And I think it is very highly in demand in the metals industry.
For my mother, she focused on human resource management and consumer behaviour. This is all focusing on how to sort of give people the skills they need to be able to be self-sustaining, and that sort of lead her to doing some research at home such as going to Zimbabwe and collecting data, and that really influenced me and taught me what it is to do research and to get – be in partnership with a lot of United Nations to sort of deliver on projects that really could be meaningful in a lot of communities in Zimbabwe.
Currently, she is currently focusing the diaspora in Ottawa. Sometimes, she travels to Israel to see how the Israeli diaspora work and network. She’s been to Ethiopia as well and trying to get all those lessons learned to see what they could do in Ottawa with a lot of immigrant communities, and so that’s what they do – completely opposite when you think about it.
My father in science. My mother in the arts and politics and development.
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