After spending ten years in Uganda running a branding and marketing business, Rehmah Kasule shifted gears and founded Century Entrepreneurship Development Agency (CEDA International), a Ugandan nonprofit focused on creating productive, resilient, and ethical youth leaders, employees, and entrepreneurs in Africa.

Once CEDA was up and running, she knew it was time push herself further, think more globally, and tap into otherwise unattainable networks. She joined the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) in 2019 and designed the PLUS+AFRICA Linkubator to create employment pathways for one million youth in Africa by 2030.

Kasule feels renewed and is now tackling a number of issues facing African women and youth. Through PLUS+AFRICA, as well as CEDA International and her work as an independent Capacity Building Consultant with the MacArthur Foundation, she is determined to disrupt the dominant narratives and amplify the voices of young people, women leaders, and social innovators with bold ideas.

While 78 percent of Uganda’s population is below the age of 30, youth unemployment is up to 46 percent in some African countries causing political violence, social unrest, radicalization, and extremism. In the spirit of the African saying “When you walk alone, you go fast; when you take others, you go far,” Kasule is working to find both connectivity and a collective voice to create more employment pathways for young people. Through PLUS+AFRICA Linkubator, she is engaging the private sector to commit long-term investment in education-to-work projects, and the governments to strengthen the entrepreneurship eco-systems.

Kasule has seen some great success within her CEDA programs: 75 percent of the beneficiaries started sustainable businesses and 15 percent are gainfully employed. Nine young women have won elective political positions, and 50 newly elected Members of Parliament, local and student councils have been empowered to successfully launch political careers.

Kasule knows first-hand that women-founded or African-founded companies have the determination to succeed, but often face difficulties in securing funding and capital. For that reason, she is working with donors to identify bold women-led social enterprises and supporting them to strengthen their systems, strategy, leadership, communication, and storytelling. Kasule provided support for 160 women-owned businesses, and helped over 25 enterprises to access venture philanthropy, impact investing, crowd sourcing and prepared them for large-scale donor grants. 

As an entrepreneur and social innovator, Kasule is frustrated with the lack of diversity in academic case studies profiling business and civil society leadership. With most case studies coming from the west, Kasule wants to see a broader representation of ideas from the global south. In order to amplify voices of social entrepreneurs and women leaders, and to bring visibility – and funding – to their work, Kasule is working to create these needed case studies.

While the pandemic raged in 2020, Kasule produced a children’s book titled Sheroes of COVID: The Women Leading in the Crisis, a global, crowdsourced collection of stories that recognizes the disproportionate exposure and impact of women during the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal is to not only preserve women’s stories, but also to serve as an inspiration to children.

Beginning her career as a young, Muslim woman, Kasule faced many roadblocks in her journey, but the “dream-takers” – as she calls these challenges – only gave her the motivation to persist. She is a do-er, a creator, and an innovator. In Africa, it’s said that “a village raises a child,” and Kasule credits those in her life that have helped her to achieve her success to date. She is determined to pay it forward by supporting young African entrepreneurs, particularly young girls and women, to thrive and pursue their greatest potential.