A Black American entrepreneur is empowering young West African women in one of the poorest countries in the world.
Payton McGriff is the founder of Style Her Empowered (SHE). The organization aims to ensure young women get a proper education by employing working-age women as seamstresses to sew school uniforms. Having the proper uniform is one of the highest financial barriers to entering the school system in Togo.
McGriff founded SHE as a student at the University of Idaho as part of a class project. She was inspired two years earlier when she read the book “Half The Sky,” which found rates low rates of female enrollment in primary school affects more than 100 million girls around the world. McGriff began her journey when a university professor encouraged her to travel to Togo, his home country over spring break during her senior year.
While there, she learned 69% of households live below the poverty line. Therefore the cost of …