A few years ago, I was privileged to evaluate a women’s economic empowerment programme. I will never forget Adanna's face when she handed in her loan repayment. For months, she had been participating in the programme. According to our surveys, she represented a perfect success story - regular attendance and timely repayments. But her eyes told a different story.   "Please," she whispered, "do not give me another loan."   Later, I learnt the truth. Her husband had forbidden he

You are African. How many African outfits do you own? I can still hear the steady hum of my mother's sewing machine. I remember coming in from playing outside and finding a new dress waiting for me. The scent of new cloth filled the room. She would hum as she worked, her foot pressing the pedal rhythmically. When she made me a dress for my seventh birthday, she stitched my name inside the collar. "So you never forget whose hands made this," she said. That dress was not just c

Where do the stories come from? They whisper from the morning message of a friend remembering shared laughter. They echo in the memory of a failed meeting that taught me more than any success. They dance in the pattern of rain on a tin roof, each drop a beat in nature's timeless rhythm. If I had the time, I could write ten stories a day, for everything surrounding me is a story waiting to be told. Today's story begins with numbers, with logic, with my mathematical mind that o