Changing the narrative on Africa.
A new training centre in Garoua is teaching young women to turn locally grown cotton thread into finished fabric. Still operating on a modest scale, Gaaraadji is creating incomes, developing scarce textile skills and showing how Cameroon could process more of one of its most important crops at home.
After mastering machine knitting in Rwanda, three Burundian women with disabilities established a workshop that now supplies schools and other customers. Having repaid their initial financing, they now want to expand production and train others.
For the women of Sè, pottery is both a link to the past and a modern economic activity.
In Addis Ababa, a computer scientist turned fitness entrepreneur, Hamrawit Gizaw, is challenging the idea that women must choose between fitness, family, and work. She has built a women-only fitness community around childcare, female trainers, and everyday realities that often keep women out of gyms.
Two artists in Addis Ababa set out to find their own studio. Instead, they established a gallery and residency program to help rising female artists advance their work and careers.
Tokunbo Adegoju never intended to become a mechanic. Today, she is called on as an expert to diagnose vehicle defects, whether that’s through radio shows or in person.
A women’s farming group in southern Malawi is reinvesting cotton earnings in poultry, livestock, shops and savings schemes—turning a seasonal crop into year-round income, new jobs and greater financial independence. Their progress also shows what Malawi’s struggling cotton sector could deliver if persistent problems with seed, prices and market access are addressed.
For many women entrepreneurs in Nigeria, growing a business requires more than a good product. It requires access to markets, training, and networks. Chinemerem Agbai Ugwa is working to provide all three.
With interest in African-made designs growing locally and globally, Kenyan entrepreneur Cherie Kihato is helping redefine what African luxury looks like.
Across Africa, crucial questions are being asked about whether children are being adequately prepared for life beyond exams and textbooks. In southeastern Nigeria, an educational entrepreneur is not waiting to find out; she has reimagined what learning can look like by using play.