To commemorate the International Women’s Day (IWD) celebration, five African women entrepreneurs across South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria, including Mokgadi Mabela, Maia Lekow, Folake Edun, Achonyo Idachaba-Obaro, and Sinenhlanhla Ndlela have been recognised by Google.
Mokgadi Mabela, the CEO of Native Nosi is a South African who left the corporate world behind to return to her family’s business of making authentic raw honey. Mokgadi laid the foundation with one beehive and she has over 360 beehives to produce honey and assist farmers with pollination services.
Founded in 2015, Native Nosi sells one to two tonnes of honey a month, and has opened an emporium where their products are sold and beekeeping master classes are hosted. Being a family business, Mokgadi is the boss lady, her sister in sales, her dad as the mentor and her husband doubles as delivery and handyman.
Mokgadi says the emporium makes it more accessible for people to interact with their products, brand and team. “We plan to expand our product line going forward, scale, become available in more strategic places that meet our client needs and hopefully expand beyond our counties borders,” adds Mokgadi.
Maia Lekow is an award winning Kenyan musician and filmmaker who founded Circle and Square productions- a creative production company with her husband in 2009.
Circle and Square Productions specialises in producing deeply personal, character-driven documentary films, depicting stories that explore the entire range of shared human experience within a rapidly changing world. The company has a deep love for indestructible women who are shattering old-world paradigms.
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Working within the realms of film and music, the company’s creations are an interplay of the feminine and masculine, the personal and political, the rational and imaginary, all seen through a vivid, Afro-optimistic lens.
Folake Edun is the CEO and Co-founder of TownTalk, a data intelligence company that captures “hard to collect” data using their suite of integrated technology tools. This data is used to improve safety and security for individuals, businesses and governments.
Being a data-intelligence company, TownTalk is on a mission to bridge the data gap problem in Africa. The company gathers locally contextual data and applies advanced algorithms to solve challenges faced by individuals, businesses and governments in developing countries.
Achonyo Idachaba-Obaro is a Computer Scientist turned Social Entrepreneur. She is the Founder of MitiMeth, a social enterprise transforming waste and building livelihoods through the transformation of invasive aquatic weeds and agricultural residues.
MitiMeth, which strives for a cleaner planet, has trained over 600 women from communities across Nigeria and Ghana to make eco-friendly home décor and lifestyle products from these natural fibres.
Idachaba-Obaro is passionate about creating sustainable textiles and decorative home accessories from renewable natural fiber materials and working with designers to push these into the mainstream.
Sinenhlanhla Ndlela is serving love through making dairy free ice cream at Yococo, a vegan ice cream business, where she is the CEO and founder. Ndlela decided on impulse to make vegan ice cream her business, selling to fellow millennials in November 2016.
Yococo is South Africa’s most-sought-after vegan ice-cream brand. Ndlela left her job in TV production to pursue a life making and serving vegan ice cream, without having owned or managed a business before, or knowing anything about the product she wanted to sell.
The company is on a mission to serve love through scoops, vegan friendly and has a strong intention of love, which is evident from the ingredients used. They are based on the 7 chakras and colour therapy and the packaging is environmentally friendly.
