5: Rethabile Mashale Sonibare on Black Excellence and STEM for Girls

EKONENI: Street Corner Stories

In Episode 5 of Ekoneni: Street Corner Stories we meet Rethabile Mashale Sonibare. Rethabile is the inspiring founder of the Thope Foundation, which is bringing Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) education to preteen girls in Khayelitsha, through an after school club that combines robotics and coding, with health and life skills. Rewriting this and other narratives has become Rethabile’s mission — and in the process, she has also become one of the successful black South African women she talks about — applying her ingenuity and heart to changing the world around her. Rethabile is a 2015 Mandela Washington Fellow, the flagship programme of the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) that bring young Africans to the US, and she credits the fellowship with introducing her to an Africa-wide network of alumni that is helping to expand Thope Foundation and her new Molo Mhlaba School. Learn more at www.thopefoundation.org and www.molomhlaba.org. Find a full transcript of this episode at www.ekoneni.com.