“Girls can become anything they want” is a phrase that has encouraged Asnath Mahana to break barriers. Growing up in South Africa, as a teenager Mahana was fascinated with airplanes. This fascination stayed with her when she enrolled at the University of Cape Town studying electrical engineering. Mahana made a decision during her first year of college that she would go against her father’s wishes to pursue her dreams.

She dropped out of college and enrolled in flight school.

College is hard enough, but flight school was more difficult for Mahana. Not only did she feel sick the first few times she took flight but she was the only woman in her class.

She told CNN, “I was the only woman in my class the whole time. I had to work very hard. I had to probably work ten times harder than the men that I was with in the classroom.” Having to work ten times harder than others just get seen as equal, is something that transcends the oceans between us and Mahana and allows us to relate to her story.

In 1998, she became South Africa’s first black female pilot inspiring the next class of girls who might want to take to the friendly skies. In 2012 she opened the African College of Aviation and has made it her mission to help girls become just like her or better.

“For me, it’s about trying to help women who aspire to become pilots. I still see a lot of black women going through the same things that I went through at that time. They still struggle to get jobs after they qualify.”

Asnath Mahana is a great example of #BlackGirlMagic and a testament that anything is possible.

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