Kigali, Rwanda

Elizabeth Dearborn Davis, Co-Founder and CEO of The Akilah Institute for Women, Kigali, Rwanda

Elizabeth Dearborn Davis has been the driving force behind the establishment of ‘The Akilah Institute’, Rwanda’s first vocational training and leadership institute for women. She has been in Rwanda for several years working on projects concerning post-conflict reconciliation and human rights advocacy. In 2007, she founded a nonprofit organization in the United States to provide scholarships to street children in Rwanda, support an orphanage in Kigali, and organize reconciliation and conflict resolution conferences for genocide survivors and high school students. In 2008, she was selected as a StartingBloc fellow and recently received the Woman of Peace award from the Women’s Peace Power Foundation.

From a set of pro bono photography I did for Project Akilah, Rwanda. An organisation whose mission is “to transform the lives of young women by empowering them with the skills and knowledge to find meaningful employment and to overcome poverty”.