MentorTalks: SMART Girls, Smart Societies

Smart Girls is the name and empowerment is the game for Jamila Mayanja, the 2023 Mandela Washington Fellowship Leadership Impact Award winner, Smart Girls Uganda Founder & CEO, and MentorTalks guest.

 

“I think my work started at that time, when I realized who I was, and I wanted to give it back to other girls,” Jamila said, speaking of her time attending Nabisunsa Girls’ School, and how it became her safe space. She attributed her success to the ExchangeAlumni network she gained from her time as a Mandela Washington Fellow.

Join Jamila on MentorTalks to hear more about the impact of her exchange program, her design-thinking approach, and her initiatives to empower young girls in Uganda, available above on Facebook and on Instagram @VoicesofExchange.

Speaker Bio

Jamila Mayanja is a serial social entrepreneur, CEO, and 2015 Mandela Washington Fellowship ExchangeAlumni. She is the founder of Smart Girls Uganda, a non-profit whose mission is to empower young women through career training, STEM education, community development, and menstrual health education. 

She is the winner of the 2023 Mandela Washington Fellowship Leadership Impact Award for her work with Smart Girls Uganda. Jamila is also a recipient of the 2022 World of Difference Education Award from The International Alliance for Women, and was a 2021 Duke-UNICEF Social Innovation Fellow.

Alongside other Youth African Leadership Initiative (YALI) alumni in 2015, Jamila was recognized by President Barack Obama for her work founding a door-to-door laundry service that employed youth and helped them build entrepreneurial skills.