Digital media company She Leads Africa and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA-NEPAD) have partnered to organise the popular innovation, culture and entrepreneurship event SLAY Festival on 7th March 2020. Coming to South Africa for the first time, SLAY Festival will be held at Fox Junction Event Venue, 14 Alexander Street, 1 Fox Precinct, Ferreiras Dorp.

AUDA-NEPAD is co-organising this event under its flagship project “100,000 SME’s by 2021” which is in line with the African Union Commission (AUC) Chairperson’s “1 million by 2021” Initiative, aiming to provide concrete opportunities for 1 million youth by the year 2021.

Since launching SLAY Festival in 2017, more than 5,000 women have benefitted from inspirational speakers, engaging brand activations, career and business mentorship, networking and shopping from exciting young entrepreneurs.

“It is an incredible privilege to collaborate with AUDA-NEPAD to bring SLAY Festival to South Africa for the first time. Our community of millennial South African women are looking for opportunities to build their skills, start new businesses and impact their communities. Working with AUDA-NEPAD will enable us to bring business experts directly to our community and connect them to vital resources to scale across Africa”, says Afua Osei, Co-Founder of She Leads Africa.

Mrs Fati N’zi–Hassane; AUDA-NEPAD Supervisor of Human Capital and Institutional Development Division who will be a key speaker at the festival says “AUDA-NEPAD has a deep commitment to providing economic opportunities for the youth, we at AUDA-NEPAD aim to contribute towards employment for Africa’s youth by supporting sustainable youth-owned and youth-managed SME’s especially for young women. Our partnership with She Leads Africa is an exciting one, we will bring our strengths to the SLAY festival to ensure we continue to build the capacity of young entrepreneurs by supporting training on entrepreneurial, business and finance management skills.”

AUDA-NEPAD seeks to contribute towards the AUC Chairpersons “1 million by 2021” Initiative, by focusing on engaging various stakeholders to avail sustainable financing mechanisms including the establishment of financial mechanisms for youth and women led SMEs. “African sustainable economic growth will be driven by SME’s and there is vast potential in the African youth taking up this challenge,” concluded Mrs N’zi-Hassane.

More information about the SLAY Festival experience and learning sessions can be found at SLAYFestival.com.

More information about AUDA-NEPAD can be found at Nepad.org.

For interviews:

Funie Rabambi - funie@twenty8zero7.com

Buhle Hlatshwayo - buhleh@nepad.org