We began as a grassroots initiative known as the Ghartey Dove Girls Project, focused on education, employment, and entrepreneurship for young women and girls to allow them to be self-sufficient, to succeed, and break beyond pre-described expectations in West Africa. Recognising education as a powerful tool for social mobility, our earliest efforts centred around helping young girls improve their lives through access to learning and opportunities to advance their comprehension levels.

But we soon realised that education alone wasn’t enough. The fundamental building blocks of a decent quality of life begin with Health.

Underfunding in reproductive health research, exclusion from clinical trials, and misinformation mean women are being underserved by medical science. Only 2% of medical research funding is spent on pregnancy, childbirth, and female reproductive health. This is despite one in three women reporting a reproductive or gynaecological health problem. Without physical and mental well-being, it becomes nearly impossible to participate meaningfully in education, work, or community life. Poor health can limit school attendance, reduce economic productivity, and deepen existing inequalities. That’s why access to basic healthcare, diagnostics, and support must be the foundation.

Once health is secured, Education becomes the next critical lever, enabling individuals, particularly girls and young people, to gain the knowledge, confidence, and skills to shape their own futures. Education opens doors to opportunity, but only if a person is well enough to walk through them.

Economic power follows, offering the means to turn education into real independence. Whether through employment, entrepreneurship, or financial literacy. Economic empowerment gives individuals the resources to make choices, support families, and influence the systems around them.

Yet even with health, education, and economic agency, none of these can be fully realised if a person lives under the constant threat of violence — whether physical, emotional, institutional, or systemic. Violence undermines autonomy, strips away dignity, and creates a climate of fear that restricts all other freedoms. A life free from violence, Without Violence, is not a final step but a constant condition necessary for any of the others to thrive. Women who have experienced violence know this most deeply — not only in times of war, but in the workplace and even within their own homes. For some, nowhere is safe. Without safety, there is no dignity, no opportunity, and certainly no freedom.

Progress too often stalls in the gap between vision and execution, where ideas fail to become action. We fill that gap.

We are here to connect the dots between people, institutions, and ideas. Lasting impact demands more than good intentions, it requires coordination. We bring together individuals, governments, the private sector, research institutions and civil society to implement solutions that no one actor could achieve alone.