Akili Dada is an international, award-winning leadership incubator operating in East Africa to cultivate transformative leadership in a generation of young African women. We apply a holistic approach to educating and cultivating leadership in adolescent girls and young women, ages 13 – 35, employing four key strategies to nurture growth and meaningful impact: Financial Investment, Leadership Development, Feminist Movement Building and Advocacy and Mentorship.
Akili Dada is founded on feminist principles of sisterhood, equality and non-discrimination therefore feminist movement building and advocacy are cross cutting in all our programming and way of life. We seeks to strengthen the voices of girls and young women in their communities through igniting their passion and creating spaces for them to champion their issues. We envision girls and young women collectively organizing for change, participating in critical conversations to influence community change and building a sisterhood to create a support system themselves and others. We are building movements of adolescent girls in high schools (13-19 years old), young adult just transitioning into adulthood (17-21), university students (18-24), young women social entrepreneurs (18-30), mentors and partners who represent us in different spaces; regionally and globally, hence feeding into our work of movement building and advocating for the rights of girls and young women.
As an organization, we have dedicated ourselves to in the next five years, be producers of knowledge and to teach feminism from an African perspective. As a result, we are implementing the East Africa Young Women Leadership and Mentoring Initiative in Kenya and Tanzania. The project is working with young women in women’s rights organizations through capacity building, intergenerational feminist mentorship and coaching and convening. The aim is to grow a new cadre of young women feminist activists and increase the meaningful participation of young women in women rights movements. This project will start to address issues critical issues of transitions in women rights organizations as well as build trust between founders/executive directors and young women under them so that we all see ourselves as part of the same team. The work will also strengthen the work of women’s rights organizations in the region by building the capacity of young women to participate in decision making spaces, project design and implementation.
How does the organization define African Feminism?
We define African feminism as girls and young women owning their agency, knowing and standing in their power and voice and epitomizing feminist principles in their lives, work and interaction with the community. Our programming is girl centred and our leadership model puts girls at the centre and drivers of their destiny. We believe that by investing in the holistic development of girls and young women, will result to the ripple effect of girls and young women influencing their peers, innovating solutions to challenges in their communities and this will eventually feed into transformative African Women Leaders.
Contact Information
Social Media Pages
– Website: https://www.akilidada.org/
– Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/akilidada/
– Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/akilidada/
– Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/akilidada/
– Medium: https://www.medium.com/@akilidada/
Physical Address: J10, Jamhuri Crescent; Off Kabarnet Road, Nairobi; P.O. Box 27847 – 00100 Nairobi, Kenya; Phone number: +254 721-552120, +254 736-678701