Estelle arrived in South Africa on Monday 29th September in her role as an ambassador for Virgin Unite, the not-for-profit foundation of Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. She met with students who are part of the Women and Men on the Move (WMOM) programme, which was launched in Johannesburg by Estelle, Dame Kelly Holmes, Sir Richard Branson and entrepreneur Sara Blakely (founder of Spanx) in 2005. On Tuesday Estelle took a tour of CIDA City Campus and the Branson School of Entrepreneurship.
‘Women and Men on The Move’ is an initiative made up of three partners, CIDA City Campus (South Africa’s first virtually free university), loveLife and the Youth Empowerment Network. Virgin Unite has supported the programme since its launch in 2005. The programme is designed to support students at CIDA by providing life skills; equipping them to be HIV/AIDS peer educators and training them to be mentors to support and empower young people to build a brighter future for South Africa’s next generation. Each young person is then responsible to go back to mentor and train about thirty other young people from their home communities.