Green Gown Awards 2018 - University of Essex - Finalist

SHE Inspires is a social enterprise project based in Aburi, Ghana aimed at empowering former sex trafficked women through business ventures whilst providing solutions to the social cultural demand within the community.

According to The Anti Human Trafficking Unit, in Ghana, 4 out of 114 trafficking cases reported in 2016, were sex-trafficking related. A year later they reported identifying 121 potential victims, of whom 9 were victims of sex trafficking. To make matters worse, Ghana is on the Tier 2 Watchlist, which means they do not meet the regulatory standards for preventing sex trafficking. 

SHE Inspires takes on 3 former sex trafficked women with a common dream of opening their own business and realising that there is a gap in the fashion and design industry, this project gathered these 3 beneficiaries and made them into budding entrepreneurs. A startup fund was given in order to open the Bridal Shop Social Enterprise. The beneficiaries agreed on a monthy repayment of 5% of their profit in order to ensure financial sustainability and agreed to train another set of 25 former sex trafficked women as apprentices who will then be employed as staffs of the bridal shop.

Top 3 learnings:

1. Building a social enterprise requires an innovative mind as well as passion.

2. Resilience is key as we cannot be upset and frustrated should we fail to implement certain strategies or plans.

3. The difference between risk and calculated risks.