Episode 236 with Linda Latsko Lockhart, Founder and CEO of Global Give Back Circle, an organisation focused on expanding education, financial inclusion and pathways to dignified work for women and girls across Africa. Since 2006, Global Give Back Circle has supported more than 6,000 girls through tertiary education, engaged more than 4,000 mentors and built programmes across Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania and Ghana.
At the centre of its economic empowerment work is HER Lab, a model designed around the realities facing young women in rural communities. Rather than treating education as the end goal, HER Lab connects vocational skills, mentorship and personal development with employment, entrepreneurship, financial inclusion and access to markets. It also works with families and community leaders to address the social expectations that can prevent women from participating fully in economic life. Through its Economic Empowerment 4 HER partnership with Mastercard Foundation, Global Give Back Circle is now scaling the model across rural Kenya, with the ambition of reaching 3,000 young women directly by 2028.
In this episode, Linda explains why women's economic empowerment requires much more than simply providing education or vocational training. She explores what Global Give Back Circle has learned from two decades of working with women and girls, why entrepreneurship has become such an important pathway for rural women, and how access to finance, markets and supportive communities determines whether skills actually translate into income.
What We Discuss With Linda
Is Africa underestimating the economic cost of keeping millions of women out of work, entrepreneurship and financial systems?
Why 76 percent of the HER Lab boarding graduates surveyed became entrepreneurs, and what that reveals about the shortage of formal employment opportunities in rural Africa.
Why teaching someone to start a business is not enough, and why access to real customers and commercially viable value chains matters more.
What happened when attitudes towards women working in construction shifted from just 19 percent to 94 percent in the surrounding community.
Could artificial intelligence widen the economic divide facing rural African women, or give them an opportunity to leapfrog it?
Many of the businesses unlocking opportunities in Africa don’t do it alone. If you’d like strategic support on entering or expanding across African markets, reach out to our partners ETK Group:
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