As a young girl, I always knew that I would make a difference one day. I didn’t know how, what, or where I would end up; but if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that I would have a happy home and a job that I could be proud of.
Twenty years later I am married to an incredible husband, a group of the greatest supporter-friends, a bubbling little boy that is filling my life with all the shades of love, and a career that I boast about every day.
Before I joined the I Can! family, I worked in the disability sector as a program co-ordinator but I started getting so frustrated with the limited resources available for families affected by disability in the region. I decided to enrich my skills set to do something about it. Together with my number 1 supporter (my husband Charles), we enrolled into a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) with the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University Business School.
In September 2012, just under a year into the degree, I came across I Can! and knew that this was the place for me. I soon joined the company by spearheading the expansion of I Can!’s footprint into the Eastern Cape. Three years later I started academies in Port Elizabeth and East London, employed 15 full time staff members, trained 156 learners, graduated with a MBA degree and birthed a busy baby boy. People say MBA is a divorce course…well, Charles and I ended up “plus one”!
The course not only provided me with so much knowledge and insight on growing and developing a business, it equipped me with essential skills in leadership and managing a diverse team.
One of my team members brought me a note one day with the meaning of my name. It reads “Lauren, you are a believer. Regardless of what other people might think, your faith is your core devotion in life. It’s the one thing inside you that will not change even when your outside changes…”
Nothing else is truer than this. Today I am exactly the person I want to be: I am living exactly the life I had dreamed of as a little girl and day by day, bit by bit, I am making a difference.
I’ll never be able to fully express my gratitude to the management and colleagues at I Can! that have showed belief in me and helped me reach the heights I’m now soaring at.
Forever grateful,
Lauren Butler
Operations Manager: Eastern Cape