Stepping out of your comfort zone is challenging, but often the only way to foster personal growth. It was with this in mind that Annetty Sengulane headed for the south of Italy to take a master’s degree in International Relations. The experience went so well that she ended up staying in Italy.
Annetty Sengulane is a 28-year-old who saw in a scholarship the possibility of changing her life. After a degree in Diplomacy at the Instituto Superior de Relações Internacionais, she enrolled at the Università della Calabria, in Italy, where she has lived for five years.
Now living in Milan, the young woman is a banker and keeps her taste for entrepreneurship alive, as she nurtures the desire to create a project of her own in fashion and lifestyle. “In truth, I have two jobs: the one I follow out of passion for the financial world (banking) and the one I follow because I love it and it has been part of me since childhood (fashion). The first consists of guiding international banks located around the biggest business hubs (Europe and Asia) in making decisions about their daily activities, respecting the directives imposed by the European Union, international law and national law. The second has to do with my brand, Elegância e Etiqueta,” shares Annetty.
The young woman is currently developing an initiative that involves Italian professionals, with a view to presenting a new product to her clients. Although she understands that this is a big challenge, she remains enthusiastic at the thought of being able to present it as soon as possible.
Now living in Milan, the young Annetty Sengulane is a banker and keeps her taste for entrepreneurship alive, as she nurtures the desire to create a project of her own in fashion and lifestyle
By email, Annetty Sengulane tells how her interest in fashion arose: “I remember the times when my aunt would organise parties at her house and delegate to me the responsibility of entertaining the rest of the children with fashion shows. I was about six or seven, but I thought it was the best! I always found it great fun and have always loved this field. In 2015 I ended up joining a fashion agency in Mozambique, where I had the opportunity to put into practice, professionally, the passion that had until then been growing in me. I had incredible experiences at the agency, from photos for magazines to appearing in an American film. When I left the fashion agency to do my Diplomacy course at ISRI, I decided to start my personal blog about fashion, etiquette and good manners.”
Annetty does not tell us openly, but we understand that the secret was never giving up: Annetty managed to combine the blog with her studies and, with the etiquette content she created, gave rise to a business: a mini etiquette school, where she taught how to improve one’s personal image both visually and behaviourally. In Italy she was unable to keep the business going, which, however, was not a sign of stopping.
“Knowing the country’s language is essential because it is what allows quick integration. I knew nothing beyond “buongiorno”, “come ti chiami?” or “grazie”. So holding a coherent conversation in order to get to know better the context I was in turned out to be harder than I had expected,” says Annetty. Rescued by Google Translate, she taught herself the language of Leonardo da Vinci: “Today I am proud to say that I am quite eloquent in conversation, thanks to the strength and determination I showed,” she adds. However, language was not the only obstacle, because while Annetty saw Italians with a strong bond with their relatives, she remembered her own family and felt a great longing. Fortunately, in the arms of her now husband she found some comfort to ease the urge to return home.
