Meet Raelene Rorke: Miss Teen SA to WEF Global Shaper – and beyond

Alec Hogg speaks to the founder of Springage Raelene Rorke on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum for Africa in Cape Town. Rorke talks us through her career from the early days in Umtata, Transkei to becoming a member of WEF's Global Shapers program.

Raelene Rorke is with us here at the World Economic Forum. You've been to a few of these events now.

I have. This is my second World Economic Forum on Africa. About two years ago, they had it in Cape Town as well, and then I've been to Davos twice. I feel a bit like part of the family.

The first couple of times I went, I was completely confused.

It's actually overwhelming. Even after being a few times, I think there are so many awesome people, the schedules are so packed, and there are great conversations. You go to one session and you feel as though you're missing out on the other sessions.

You're a Global Shaper. I was listening to Klaus Schwab, the Founder of the World Economic Forum early this year, saying that it was his greatest achievement with the Global Shapers. Do you agree?

I think so. The Form has done much.

What do you guys do?

We've actually, just had a session. I've just come from a session with Professor Klaus Schwab and he was telling us again, about why he started the Global Shapers. The Global Shapers is a self-governed community. It's a self-regulated, self-organised group of young people in different cities and we see ourselves as the foot soldiers of the Forum.

How many of you are there?

There are over 5000 of us across 75 different countries. At this meeting, there are 80 of us from 40 different countries. On the African continent, there are about 1000 of us. As I said, we're foot soldiers. We do projects on the ground. We come. We get the perspective, the global input from these kinds of meetings and then go into our own local spaces, so it's broken up into cities rather than countries. You'll go into your city and say, "What's the greatest need? What's happening" and then you start projects. We do projects.

What are you doing in Johannesburg?

For example, we're just launching a financial literacy project now. When we started this year, we said, "We want to impact two areas. The entrepreneurial space has a bit of momentum. Where can we add into that?" The second part was functional literacy. "How do we go into underprivileged schools?" Financial literacy has been a big thing, but how do we increase the readership? Simple messages like that but they're impactful projects. We're doing a financial literacy project. We also hold a lot of dialogue. We did a dialogue about Chibok, commemorating 365 days of the Chibok girls still missing, for example, and we will invite some leaders to talk. We do meet the leader sessions. We've just done stuff on xenophobic attacks and some education around that, and marching in Alex. It's like a mix between being relevant and really, being current and making sure that our voices are heard around those topics. Then we have our bigger projects, such as the financial literacy rollout, which we'll start in July for Savings Month.

Tell us a little about Raelene Rorke. You're originally from Umtata. How did you land up in Johannesburg?

I landed up in Johannesburg when I was 14 years old – modelling. I was working as a commercial model/teen model at 14 years of age. There were no agencies in Umtata. I moved up here while I was in high school. I did a bit of modelling, retired by the age of 19 (a very successful teen career) and then I went into beauty pageants. Once I'd made a little bit of money and enjoyed the modelling space (commercially), I then started asking, "What else is there?" That's when I entered Miss Teen South Africa, and that was in 2004.

Winning that must have given you a bigger profile than anticipated.

Absolutely. I was privileged because I was in my Matric year and my reigning year was the year after, so I decided to take a Gap year and just be Miss Teen fulltime.

How do you stop boys hitting on you? I can just imagine every boy in your school/in your area must have thought, "Miss Teen South Africa. I'm going to hit on her".

It's a funny one. I was a nerd at school. I wasn't that cool at school. During my schooling, I had two characters. On the one hand, I was a nerd with the long dress and the big bag because I constantly brought all my textbooks to school (even if I didn't need them, but just in case). During the afternoons, I was on a billboard for Love Life and I was in the True Love magazine. People didn't quite know where to place me. I guess I'm actually, quite conservative. Boys would come but I had so many things going on. I was a different type of student. You're either rushing off to a casting or you're rushing off to an audition. In addition, you have sport and schoolwork.

There are many things going on in your life now. Global Shapers is an incredible responsibility but it's also the fact that you're doing good.

It's fantastic. It really is. Some of the powerful things is that you are with your peers. If I think about the young people, the shapers coming from all over Africa; it's unbelievable. These guys are changing policies in their countries. It gives you a perspective of the continent, never mind when you go to an international meeting. I just came from Italy and there were Global Shapers from around Europe. It's so inspiring and so affirming as well. It really motivates you to say, "There's work to be done in our countries. Let's go. Everybody else is doing it. Let's go for it", so a lot's going on. I'm also involved in Artscape, for example. I'm on the Board of Artscape, looking at Heritage and how we get more young people involved.

You're running your own business, too.

My own business as well, which is a completely fulltime job. It's a little baby. Its three years old so it's just getting to a place where it's finding its feet and that's very, very exciting.

Do you have time (with all of this) to even think about politics and the stuff that older people become terribly het up about – the FIFA bribe that has now been confirmed this morning – those kinds of things?

I think so. With the stuff I do, I need to be engaged in those kinds of conversations and thinking anyway. With the work we do in Springage (my company), it is about how we keep corporate organisations and government departments relevant. How do we help them innovate? How do we help them come up with new ideas to do things better in the country? If I'm going into a security business and having that conversation, I need to know what's going on in the state of security. If I'm going into the agricultural space, I need to know what's going on. I have to create the time and it's all interlinked.

How do you consume media? Given that you're so busy and there's so much going on in the media world as it is, do you follow Twitter? Do you go on Facebook? Do you rely on that for your source of information?

I do think it's a bit of everything. I don't own a TV. Since October 2010, I've never had a TV so I watch very little news on TV. In my hotel room, I'll maybe have CNN. It's a bit of everything and I think what's nice about the 'now generation' is that we do have the social media, so you tend to have different perspectives. I don't know if media is as trusted… There are different publications. You'll read but you know you'll have to read another one, so it's a bit of the newspaper, a bit of magazine, and a lot of conversation – being part of meetings.

You can also trust the live stuff, like now. Isn't that incredible? You can go onto Twitter. You livestream anywhere in the world. People can watch us having this conversation.

That's it and it's validated as well. Validated conversations, even meetings like this…if I'm talking to another Global Shaper from Burkina Faso I'm like, "Guys, what is happening in Burkina Faso – from a real person?" I think media plays some role because some high-level stuff needs to be reported but we have many ways to validate and have conversations around it.

It's hard to hide things as people are now discovering.

Absolutely. People are asking more questions. People want to be satisfied.

Tell me about your name. You're from Umtata. Rorke is Irish. You certainly don't look Irish.

Rorke is Irish. I'm first-generation Umtata/Eastern Cape. My mom, dad, and many of my family are in Zululand in Rorke's Drift, actually.

You're descended from the original Rorke.

That's it. James and Jimmy Rorke who came to fight the different wars. They're all from the Empangeni area and the Stanger area. That's where he came from, and Raelene and Rorke are old Irish names.

Extraordinary. Isn't that lovely – just woven into South Africa's history? What about Raelene Rorke in ten or 15 years' time? You have your business. You've had an incredible beginning to your life/career. What's next?

I'm currently studying my GMAT so that I can get into business school. I have a craving. I said to myself, "I'm giving myself ten years to just delve into the business world in some way", and I kicked off by being an entrepreneur – starting a business and saying, "Can I build something from scratch?" That's been a beautiful exercise. In the next ten years…let's see. I think business school will provide different opportunities, a different mindset, different thinking, and a different network of people. Perhaps I'll go into the corporate space, which is a space I haven't gone into yet. However, definitely keeping on track with different things like some of the Global Shapers, the community, and the work I'm doing in South Africa… I don't know how it will all come together, but I see a career in the corporate space coming up. I see bigger business. We have a 20-year plan for what we want to build on the continent in the innovation space, so there's still a lot of work to be done there. I don't know. Five years? We'll see, but there are little milestones in place.

I see some guy on a PA system here is trying to drown us out. Just to close off with, I've been reading some of your interviews. You've had a lot of media exposure. You talk about hope. You talk about dreams. Does that get you up in the mornings? Many in your generation don't have that much hope.

It definitely is. I'd say my word is inspiration. I chase/take an opportunity I can get because in Umtata, it felt like there wasn't much. Even modelling for me, was an opportunity. Someone from East London or somewhere said, "I'm going to take modelling lessons after school and let's see where it goes". We didn't have that, so I grabbed that opportunity and I was trying something different. One thing my parents said is, "You mustn't forget that you're actually an ambassador". When I do something, I always feel that I'm representing young people in Umtata. I'm representing young people in the Eastern Cape. Your gratitude is so increased so vastly.

Your responsibility, as well.

Your responsibility is increased.

You can't get drunk and disorderly. Someone could take a video of you and put it on YouTube.

Miss Teen was good training for that. No boyfriends. No drinking. You learn all those things, but then you're representing your home, your family, your community, and then you go on and start representing your region and your country in meetings like this. It just goes on. The 'hope thing: you are the hope. I think it's been drilled in for quite a while. Sometimes, it may feel like a burden. You don't feel it because it's just everyday stuff. I think it's a burden, which we have to take on. We were talking to Professor Schwab today and he was saying, "What is the African identity? Young people, you guys are African. How are you identifying yourselves?" I couldn't help but to think that hope and inspiration has to be one of the descriptors in what I would like the African identity to be. We've come out of so much. The world has much to learn and us as South Africans – the world has so much to learn from us about 'it can be done. We've been through worse. It can be done'. I feel that I live that in some ways, in my individual life.

Raelene, it's always a pleasure talking to you. That's Raelene Rorke. She is the Founder and Chief Executive of Springage.

Thank you. It's lovely being here.