By Karla Cloete
Edited by Imaan Moosa
In an ever-changing work environment, Annezka Magalhães-Pinto is someone who has embraced exploring careers and passions as a life-long mission.
Annezka Magalhães-Pinto was born and raised in Pretoria. Today, at 70 years old she works as a pastoral counsellor in Pretoria. This was not always her occupation.
Magalhães-Pinto married young and after she divorced, she worked while raising her one-year-old son as a single mother. She has assumed a myriad of roles – managing restaurants, in a bank, and at a library as a personal assistant.
Growing up she had wide and varying interests, and as a result could not quite pinpoint what she wanted to do with her life.
After her son left home with his girlfriend in 1994 to start a business in Cape Town, she felt empty and all alone in the world. She was spurred into figuring out what to do with her life.
At 42, she sought out a psychologist to choose a new field who recommended psychology. Magalhães-Pinto did not question it, jumping right in.
She began studying for a bachelor's through the University of South Africa (Unisa) and later at the University of Pretoria where she received her qualifications as a registered counsellor in 2005.
She describes the difficulty of entering a new field when her classmates were younger than her. Her family was supportive, her manager at the time gave her days off to attend class once a week, and she had study groups with her fellow peers. Mostly, she knew she had to do it on her own.
Unfortunately, she did not attain a psychology master's.
While working in Employee Assistance Programmes her superior introduced her to Therapeutic Development. So in 2011, she began doing her master's degree in pastoral counselling through Unisa.
She would wake up at 3 am to study until she had to get ready for her full-time job at 6 am. Magalhães-Pinto was absolutely determined to get through these tough years in order to better understand her practice, and it proved worth it.
“I have never looked back and regarded my life as fulfilling and purposeful.”
After completing her degree, she began working and managing the Glen Pastoral Care Centre, which offers counseling services to anyone in need.
The first few years were slow-moving: with very few patients coming through the doors that it took a while to really get the project off the ground.
Today, she also runs a SADAG support group that offers free support to her members.
She is motivated to continue learning and wishes she could try out other careers even though she feels settled and is glad she made the change:
“It completely changed my life and I never looked back,” Magalhães-Pinto said. “It’s challenging at first… Today I feel I’m where I should be.”