Girls Trip Tours, South Africa: Traveling mentoring program launches with 2nd cohort from Soweto
In July 2018, I launched Girls Trip Tours in Accra, Ghana. Our program reached 22 Ghanaian girls (aged 14 - 20) enrolled at the Soronko Academy: West Africa's first coding and human-centered design school. Last week, we launched our second program. This time, in Johannesburg, South Africa with 35 girls from Soweto (aged 14-16) selected by our partners at Junior Achievement SA and GirlsCode SA.
Girls Trip Tours exemplifies the magic that happens when women from different cultures, generations, and socio-economic backgrounds come together in a space filled with positivity, self-love, and joy. With every country I take travellers of the African diaspora to visit on my uniquely curated travel experiences focused on female empowerment, we challenge ourselves to mentor young girls and bring them on the journey of self-discovery with us.
The Johannesburg mentoring day was a remarkable success. The girls heard from successful local entrepreneurs and industry leaders including:
Nneile Nkholise: Founder of iMedTech and Forbes30under30 fellow
Pumla Maswanganyi: Head of Strategy, Boabab Consulting and the youngest executive at her company
Dorothy Amuah: Partner at Nomadic African, a luxury PR company dedicated to giving African brands global visibility
Musa Mafelatshuma: South Africa Community Manager of Tastemakers Africa, a popular travel marketplace for authentically African experiences
Then, we performed our signature "dream out loud" activity where the girls voiced their inner-most desires for a life well-lived.
And finally, we co-created an ideal mentorship program for them, which included:
workshops on self-love
access to mentors who have achieved success
opportunities for personal growth and career development
I thoroughly enjoyed my time with these girls and how ambitious their life aspirations are. As much as I know that more than a day is needed to truly change someone's life. The girls reminded me with their kind messages after the event that a little goes a long way.
“ Thank you. We really enjoyed the event and we'd appreciate if we can get such an opportunity again because it was such a rare experience.” - Pumelelo, 15
“ The experience was worth it. I learnt a lot of new things today. Met new girls and mentors. You gave us a shot at expressing ourselves and reviewing our dreams with other people. Thank you very much.” - Kelisiwe, 14
I have to add that these girls were on March Break during the workshop, but still signed up for the event and came out early to spend a day learning instead of relaxing at home. It's funny because it was the same for the girls in Ghana - my event was on a public holiday. I promise I don't do it on purpose, but I love the fact that these girls are so invested in themselves that they would come to an event like mine during their time off.
Next stop on this journey will be Nairobi, Kenya where I will work with 30 girls living in the slums of Kibera who are looking for more than their current circumstance affords them. I am particularly excited for Kenya because I have partnered with an amazing young woman who heard about my event in Ghana and wrote to me asking for me to bring the program to the girls in the slum where she grew up. She is now a successful tech entrepreneur who was actually living in Accra, Ghana at the time of my first workshop. She understands far too well how limiting the environment in which you grow up can be on your aspirations. Together, we will work to show the girls of Kibera how dreams can become reality, and I am proud to do it alongside someone who has made the exact journey we are encouraging the girls to go on.
The next milestone will be to take these inputs from the Accra, Soweto, and next, Nairobi workshops to build an impactful mentoring program (essentially designed by the girls we hope to serve). This program will be integrated into the Girls Trip Tours group travel experience and will also leverage our network of solo-travellers.
Huge thanks to the LULA team for sponsoring transportation. The girls enjoyed their roundtrip rides from Soweto to Maboneng for the activities.
If you are interested in sponsoring the Girls Trip Mentoring Event in Nairobi, Kenya on September 2nd, 2019, please send me a message here on Linkedin!
PS: It is the hardest thing to organize an event remotely - especially in a city you have never visited. I almost cancelled this event several times, but I am so happy it happened and thank all the women (and man) who sponsored this event. The girls loved it, their teachers may have loved it even more. They were able to express themselves, speak their truths, and get the help they needed with childhood traumas where necessary. I appreciate everyone who made this event possible on the deepest level. Special shoutout to Workshop17 Maboneng for hosting us in their gorgeous space and the mentors who came through and shared their stories so authentically.