Projects

“Founding Women” by Eunice Baguma Ball is an inspiring read featuring twenty African women entrepreneurs who have fulfilled their dreams of running their own businesses. The book relates their stories and how they dealt with the setbacks and challenges they had to overcome to achieve success. It is stuffed full of lessons and encouragement for…

When I visited Kalobeyei on the edge of Kakuma refugee camp last month hopes were high that it would eventually grow into a new city in its own right with a self-reliant community bringing jobs and trade to this impoverished corner of Turkana West county in Kenya. Kalobeyei is already home to 36,000 people who’ve…

Students from the UK’s Warwick University have had another great year teaching Maths in African township schools. They taught 96,626 young people last year. This means that Warwick students have taught almost half-a-million children since the annual Warwick In Africa programme began in 2006. Warwick now wants to smash that half million mark next year…

My charity Handicap International has signed up Neymar, the world’s most expensive footballer to be its new global Ambassador.   As Chair of Trustees of Handicap International UK I’m delighted that Neymar has agreed to work with us on behalf of disabled children around the world. In this age when so many football millionaires are…

The Goethe Institute in Nairobi was a perfect venue for the launch of Education Sub-Saharan Africa’s Talent In Africa evening. After all as the great German writer said “whatever you can do or dream you can begin it” and the charity  has taken his advice to begin it’s great enterprise to transform education in Africa.…

Aleema Shivji Executive Director, Handicap International UK Handicap International is also campaigning for all vulnerable people to be treated fairly. And there’s no group of people more vulnerable than the child refugees who arrive in the UK without their parents or any means of support. Here’s how H.I’s Executive Director Aleema Shivji responded to the recent…

Journalism in Africa is really making a difference to global perceptions of the continent. It provides an opportunity to inform the world audience about the realities of modern and to smash the negative stereotypes that have dogged the continent for too long. Whenever I travel in Africa I’m now gripped by the range of new…

Africa’s first private satellite is being built by school girls in the Western Cape of South Africa. The Meta Economic Development Organisation (MEDO) has invested in this technology to empower young women to learn and succeed in the global economy by getting involved in science, technology, science and maths, the so-called STEM subjects. I’m delighted…

In the dusty Cape Flats seventeen-year-old Bhanekazi Thandwa is grappling with her new found skills to build a tiny robot. She’s just one of hundreds of young African women taking part in an ambitious project create a new generation of female engineers. Bhanekazi got involved in the project when girls from her Dr Nelson Mandela…