International Women’s Day: Linden woman, Tannizia Gasper Breaking Barriers Through Inspiration

By Abiola Archer

Although International Women’s Day is celebrated once a year, daily, women around the world show that this gender is deserving of recognition for continuously breaking the glass ceiling, inspiring and overcoming many obstacles.  Amazingly, women make it happen every single day! One woman who has been an inspiration to her community in many ways, is daughter of Linden’s soil, Tannizia Gasper. Gasper is a wife and mother of two beautiful girls, author and Chief Executive Officer of the Linden Enterprise Network. Despite these celebrated titles, she has had her fair share of maneuvering life’s challenges to become the inspiration she is today to many others, with her vast knowledge and experiences.  

Born and raised on the Wismar shore, Gasper received her secondary education at the Christianburg Wismar Secondary School before reading for a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science at the University of Guyana, then a Master’s in Business Administration from the Australian Institute of Business. She started working at Linden Economic Advancement Fund (LEAF) which resulted in promotions over the years and she now serves as the CEO of the Linden Enterprise Network.

With a quest to narrate her experiences, she took up the challenge of becoming an author and did so successfully with publishing a chapter in a book titled “Release the reservoir within you”. This book was written by only women with the sole aim of inspiring others. It was released in 2022. The chapter was based on the importance of self-discovery. In the book she gave the tools and strategies that are necessary in the self-discovery process and explained after finding yourself, how you can create a framework of what you want.

Now powered with motivation to keep writing, Gasper then went on to publish her first solo book titled “Renew your mind for success”.

The book is geared towards educating entrepreneurs on how to transform their businesses into successful establishments. It offers tips, tools and strategies to help renew the mind by confronting their beliefs and to help break their limitations so as to be able to grow and expand financially through consistency. Her book was published online in December of 2023 and will be launched in-person on April 20^th , 2024. It can be presently found on her website, tanniziagasper.com.

For more than seven years, Gasper has been an activist for young girls. She said, “I am passionate about girls and I am passionate about working with girls.” She expressed that she believes if we can change how our girls see themselves we can be able to have better women, stronger women, women who are sure of their identity, and women who are sure of what they want to accomplish and the mark they want to leave as a legacy.

Like every other woman, Gasper encountered challenges before attaining her accomplishments and finding self. Over the years Gasper somehow lost her values trying to have external validation from others. One of the things she got lost in during this period of her life, which became a challenge was having to navigate and question her values or who she really is. The very thing that she believed, she doubted. She was on a path where she wanted to be validated and wanted to be acknowledged for everything she did.  After overcoming that challenge, she now expresses, “You don’t need external validation, once internally you’re happy with or align with your values and beliefs, then that settles it, you don’t need external validation.”

Her words to women are, “as a woman, it is necessary for you to know who you are and what you desire and work towards it”.

Her future goals include establishing an institute for girls where they can be molded holistically in all aspects of their lives, create digital assets, writing more books, and doing transformational speaking and coaching to help change the belief and mind set of others, which will help them to not rely on external validation, like she once did.

 This year the theme for International Women’s Day is “Inspire Inclusion”