HERfrica:

WRITTEN BY Olatunde Alegbe

The struggles, the fight and pains they go through. Yes!

With recent revolutions for the Girl Child, these girls set out to achieve a life full of endless possibilities. In an area of the world where girls and women face extreme  vices including gender discrimination from birth throughout their life, educating them is a powerful tool to foster a transformed society for them to become a change maker for good. The tide is changing, we are creating a supportive environment for the African Girl Child. With contributions too numerous to count, we’ve seen the prowess in the African Girl through their lives; Chimamada Adichie, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Oprah Winfrey, Sirleaf Johnson, April Ryan, Angela Rye, Joy Buolamwini, Diana Salah, Joyce Banda and many fast thriving African women.

Growing up, our girls were made to feel ashamed of their homeland, with negative imprints about Africa as a desolate continent. Living with the narrative of being tied to the kitchen with more or less needless provision for education, there is a rebuild as there seems to be a revamping on the development of African women. 

Today as ever, African female activists are reshaping the image of an HERfrican.

Leading Her World.

Women in Africa are setting new standards for women’s political leadership globally. Check out the stats:

Rwandan women today hold 62% of the country’s legislative seats, the highest in the world.

In Senegal, South Africa, Namibia, and Mozambique, more than 40% of parliamentary seats are held by women.

The likes of Guinea’s Jeanne Martin Cissé, Liberia’s Angie Brooks and Tanzania’s Anna Tibaijuka and Asha-Rose Migiro have all held top positions at the UN. Also, African women have also been pioneering in business. Aspiring young female entrepreneurs today have several role models they can follow take for example, Ghana’s Esther Ocloo.

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, African countries have almost equal numbers of men and women either actively involved in business start-ups or in the phase of starting a new firm. And in countries such as Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia, women are reportedly more likely to be entrepreneurs than men.

 These changes are evident not only at the grassroots but, to an extent, at the highest levels. A new way of imagining an African Woman is emerging.

Here’s to every African Girl Child seeing this;

“Dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourselves in a way that others may not simply because they’ve never seen it before”.

-Kamala Harris- 2020

It is your HERfrica!