JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – September 9th, 2020 – Looking out over the skyline of the vibrant city of Johannesburg, one youth activist considers the work that still lies ahead to safeguard women’s rights and safety. In a country with one of the world’s highest rates of gender-based violence, Amonge Sinxoto is making sure young women are empowered to effect change in their communities.

“Globally, women’s safety remains in peril, and they often bear the brunt of gender-based violence. We need to work with young women and cultivate their talent, so they feel confident to help build a safer, more just society.”

Amonge Sinxoto is the co-founder of Blackboard Africa, a 2019 Global Teen Leader and current Allan Gray Candidate Fellow. She has lent her voice to speak on issues related to youth activism on programmes by Google, Facebook, and TEDx. And she’s only 19 years old.

In 2019, Sinxoto attended the Social Enterprise World Forum in Addis Ababa, where she met 51·çÁ÷Head of Global CSR Alexandra van der Ploeg. After Sinxoto shared a proposal of their plans for 2020, Blackboard Africa was awarded an 51·çÁ÷grant for €15,000 to help fund some of the planned activities. “Alexandra has been a mentor and helped guide us through the disruption from Covid-19 to ensure we can continue our programmes despite lockdown. She has also helped guide us as we make changes to our organisation to ensure we can continue delivering on our purpose, which is more relevant than ever.”

Sinxoto says the statistics speak for themselves: “South African women feel unsafe, bear the brunt of gender-based attacks, and often live in fear even as they contend with immense socio-economic challenges. It’s time to lean into young women and empower them to become the next generation of leaders in our country.”

Accurate figures over South Africa’s rate of gender-based violence are hard to come by, partly because most incidents are not reported. However, in one local study in 2011, data revealed that more than one in every three (37.7%) women in the country’s economic hub of Gauteng have experienced intimate partner violence. And last year, found that 43% of women surveyed reported feeling unsafe.

Blackboard Africa is a registered non-profit organisation based in Johannesburg, South Africa. The brainchild of youth activists and social entrepreneurs Amonge Sinxoto and Zingisa Socikwa, Blackboard Africa aims to bridge the leadership gap among young people aged 13 to 25 with a view to addressing Africa’s challenges.

The organisation runs a number of projects, including the Fan Her Flame leadership programme, a Boys Will Not Be Boys outreach programme for young men, and Pass The Baton, which aims to prepare young people aged 12 to 25 to overcome life’s hurdles in the pursuit of social impact.

Sinxoto and her team are currently working with two groups of girls as part of the Fan Her Flame programme, one group from Soweto and another from Alexandra township. “Many of these girls live in trying circumstances with daily battles against poverty and hunger. Despite this, the girls are incredibly bright, but their confidence levels are low. We want to inspire them to see themselves in situations where they can achieve more and make a positive change in the community around them.”

The Fan Her Flame programme takes the format of a series of workshops hosted over several weeks. The goal is for young women to understand their value, learn to better express their challenges and maximise their contribution to the development of their communities. “We want to show these young women that there is power in their voice,” says Sinxoto. “And we want to give them practical tools to help them build a better future, including planning techniques that help them set short and long-term goals that bring them closer to their vision.”

She adds that it’s important that the next generation of female leaders and role models don’t live in fear of violence and abuse. “Tackling the issue of gender-based violence requires interventions at multiple levels. Policy reform is needed to improve the structures that govern women’s rights. Police need to be trained to deal with gender-based issues and increase the intensity at which they investigate gender-based violence. And we need an honest conversation with men, many of whom continue to wage war against the women in our society.”

South Africa’s government is taking the matter seriously. It released a National Strategic Plan on Gender-Based Violence and Femicide in 2020, which features built on four strategic pillars: Accountability Coordination and Leadership; Prevention and Rebuilding of Social Cohesion; Justice, Safety and Protection; and Response, Care, Support and Healing.

“The challenges are immense,” says Sinxoto. “In one of our communities, up to ten families share a single outdoor toilet. This means young girls often have to walk in the dark of night as far as 1km to use the bathroom, which puts them at incredible risk. These are not problems that will disappear overnight, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t meaningful actions we can take now to improve the lives of these young girls and inspire hope.”

To help deliver on its purpose, Blackboard Africa often works with partners and volunteers to help drive the success of its programmes. “We are always seeking more industry support, particularly to bring in relevant mentors that can inspire and guide the girls on their journey. Funding is always a challenge: some of the communities in which we work face abject poverty. You can’t learn when you’re distracted by hunger, so we work with partners to meet some basic needs within our communities.”

Global head of CSR for SAP, Alexandra van der Ploeg says young women such as Amonge and her colleagues at Blackboard Africa hold the promise of a bright future for the African continent. “Undaunted by the scale of the challenges, Amonge and the Blackboard Africa team work tirelessly to support one of the most vulnerable communities, inspiring hope and creating opportunities for meaningful change in their communities. As a purpose-led organisation, 51·çÁ÷is proud to support the vital work they are doing and will continue working with them to create sustainable, positive impact.”

For more information about Blackboard Africa’s initiatives, please visit

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“By having a platform to identify, report and address the pressing issues or rape, human trafficking and other forms of violence against women and girls, we’re raising awareness that there are organisations such as ours that can provide valuable services to support victims,” said Dr DaSilva.

Women at Risk International Foundation () is a non-profit organisation that combats gender-based violence against women and girls in Nigeria. In 2019, WARIF partnered with 51·çÁ÷and incorporated the 51·çÁ÷People Connect 365 mobile service into its Gatekeepers project. The organisation has since trained over 500 traditional birth attendants from 15 local government areas across Lagos State to use the software. Many users report cases in real time, allowing quicker responses from healthcare teams.

“We’re getting active cases faster, allowing us to intervene more quickly and in real-time, which we couldn’t do before,” says DaSilva. “We are also receiving positive feedback from traditional birth attendants as well as the women and girls they have helped.”

Gender-based violence is a major concern in Nigeria. According to a  by the UN and the Nigerian government, 28% of Nigerian women aged 25 to 29 have experienced some form of physical violence since age 15.

To ensure its mobile platform met the needs of healthcare providers working in remote communities, WARIF participated in a series of design thinking workshops with SAP. Rohit Tripathi, Head of Products and Go-To-Market at 51·çÁ÷Digital Interconnect, which worked closely with WARIF, says: “We made certain that birth attendants, regardless of where they are, could easily access this service without having to compromise on any of the functionalities. This also helped us enhance the service.”

Replacing silence with a community of support

Aside from the stigma associated with gender-based violence, healthcare providers in Nigeria also battle cultural norms. “The perpetrator is usually well-known and might even be a family member,” says DaSilva. “Many families and communities in Nigeria don’t discuss these issues out of concern for protecting the dignity of the family name, instead of making sure the young survivor receives adequate care.”

DaSilva credited the 51·çÁ÷People Connect 365 mobile service with helping to upend traditions of silence around sexual abuse. The text messaging platform fosters ongoing conversations among healthcare providers and others across WARIF’s education and community service programs. For example, now traditional birth attendants engage more with each other at monthly meetings and through social media chat groups, incorporating information about identified cases in the field.

“Traditional birth attendants are sharing problems they ordinarily wouldn’t have had an opportunity to share, much less address in a timely manner as they work in geographically remote areas,” said DaSilva. “The fact that we train them encourages these supportive  relationships and helps all of us put a spotlight on addressing problems.”

DaSilva backs WARIF’s original strategy to train local traditional birth attendants to use the mobile software, since these healthcare providers are already trusted by everyone, including the local leaders who adjudicate instance of abuse in many Nigerian rural communities.

“When cases have been identified, we’re always well-received when presenting to the community gatekeepers in the various geographical areas we visit,” says DaSilva. “They are happy for us to intervene because they lack knowledge or training on how to help. In many cases it’s a question of lacking the means to communicate for assistance, which our platform can now enable.”

Despite challenges including power outages and community resource constraints, DaSilva says WARIF is exploring further plans to extend its reach with more community agencies. “We’re working with people who actually care and are willing to work with us to enable us to scale and impact a wider group of women we wouldn’t ordinarily be able to access.”

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