Empowering Africa’s young leaders to create change
Prince Adu Appiah founded 1 Billion Africa, a Ghanaian non-profit organization that works to help eradicate poverty in Africa by turning problems into projects and empowering the continent’s young leaders to act on the problems they see in their communities. He grew up in a community marked by inequality and socioeconomic challenges and developed an insatiable desire to help bring about positive change for, what he estimates, the 1 billion problems in Africa.
In 2017, Prince joined EWB as a Kumvana fellow to learn more about managing a nonprofit, including its team of staff and volunteers, multiple projects, and advocacy efforts. EWB’s systems-change approach helped Prince better understand how to build a better educational program for one of his organization’s projects.
“After learning about systemic change, our team looked at all the factors that influence the problem we were trying to solve, listing all of the stakeholders and drawing connections between each of them.”
He realized that the educational program involved more than just the children they hoped to impact and the community elders they engaged but as well the parents, teachers and other influences.
Prince credits his fellowship for helping him take his initiative to the next level. 1 Billion Africa has run 19 projects in three countries including Ghana, Namibia, and South Africa, impacting more than 9,000 people, and continues to grow better and better, after the fellowship.
