Akili Dada works to empower promising young women from underprivileged backgrounds to become the next generation of African women leaders. We envision empowered African women from diverse economic backgrounds equally represented in leadership. To achieve this goal, we offer comprehensive scholarships, personalized mentoring and rigorous leadership training to promising young women in secondary school who come from underprivileged backgrounds.
Poverty, early marriage, and familial obligations combine to create extreme disparities in Kenyan girls' access to education: while young women comprise a stunningly successful 48% of all primary school students, less than 30% of girls who complete primary school make it to secondary school. Of these, even fewer complete their secondary school education, a prerequisite for access to positions of leadership and an ability to influence the policy-making process.
We identify high-potential girls and ensure they gain access to top quality education by linking them with local professional women mentors. Additionally, they undergo a rigorous leadership training program grounded in service-learning.
Justice is best served when there is a diversity of voices at the decision-making table. Poor women are underrepresented and under-served by decision-making processes across Kenya. We are successfully investing in the next generation African leaders.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
