Vendredi

E. Aminata Brown with the women at BaBa Blankets

After five years in Ghana, BaBa Blankets and SISTAWorks founder E. Aminata Brown is back in the Big Easy, funding and directing her nonprofits from a distance. Brown’s two initiatives to help empower women and girls in Ghana earned her the honor of appearing on MORE Magazine’s Hire Job Genius Series, a distinction saved for women that create sustainable, impactful job opportunities for their fellow ladies. Now, Brown is on the list to win $20,000 to go towards her two nonprofits, but she needs your vote to do it.  

Brown is featured as one of the ten women MORE chose to honor. BaBa Blankets is an initiative that employs Ghanaian women through textile work, a project that Brown began in 2000. The founder said her experience with Ghanaian women resonated with her and compelled her to action. 

“I was living in Ghana and met a community of young women who worked as load carriers. I was extremely inspired by their commitment and perseverance. When I interviewed them, they all said they wanted to learn to sew,” Brown said. 

The women in BaBa Blankets create a sustainable, culturally sound product that they export to the United States for sale. They keep all their profits, and they now also work with other African women’s cooperatives. There are currently 75 women involved in BaBa Blankets, but Brown’s work doesn’t end there.

In April 2011, Brown created SISTAWorks, Inc. nonprofit (Stay In School Tuition Assistance). The program helps girls in Ghana’s rural areas complete high school, and Brown hopes that she can use $20,000 to boost her efforts with SISTAWorks.  

“Receving an award such as this offers our enterprise much needed resources to continue exposing and strengthening the tremendous efforts,” Brown said. She hopes to use funding to expand her program’s reach to educate more young women.

“Part of what we do is support girls’ education. We want to keep more girls in school through our SISTA-scholar program. Right now we have 55 girls, 40 of them are going to graduate next summer. Want to put together a girls’ summer empowerment institute.”

Voters have until August 31 to pick their favorite community leaders, and you can vote for Brown here. Brown also said that people can also support the organization by considering sponsoring a student, all donations to the 501 (c)(3) are fully tax deductible.