DreamGirls Academy: Connecting Girls in South Africa to Economic Opportunities with Ezlyn Barends

Meet Ezlyn Olivia Barends, the co-founder of DreamGirls Academy an organisation in South Africa, dedicated to shifting girls and young women from a space where they are economically dependent to connecting them to economic opportunity, through mentoring and education.

In the interview Ezelyn speaks about:

• How a quarter life crisis led her to explore how she wanted to be of service and ultimately culminated in the idea for DreamGirls Academy
• How she and her team came up with ways to open up revenue streams beyond grants to support their programs
• Why they decided to go deep vs. wide with their program and how this decision is reflected in the results they get for the girls
• And how they have designed a social franchise model to help scale they idea to other regions.

Ezlyn also shares her thoughts on what to do when you want to find your purpose and what her advice for young South African girls is.

There is a lot of gold in this interview and we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

And now without further ado, enter Ezlyn Barends.

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