Stories

I am the only woman to survive the Joola tragedy

It is something that those who didn't experience it will never forget, let alone those of us who did. There were 22 of us rescued by the fishermen, but I was the only woman. It was very, very hard. The night before travelling on the…

Meet Capt Ibrahim Traoré: Africa’s youngest ruler

Said to have been a shy but intelligent boy in school, Burkina Faso's Capt Ibrahim Traoré has become the latest military officer to seize power in a coup in one of France's former colonies in West Africa. He overthrew his former…

It takes a brave heart to do what I do

You know, people hate faeces. You need a brave heart to touch somebody else's faeces. My name is Julius Hadison Chisengo and I am a pit latrine emptier. In the beginning, we used to do it manually. You would remove the floor and then…

Is this Nigerian teen the next women’s golf prodigy?

A single moment can change the trajectory of our lives. For Nigerian Iyeneobong "Iyene" Essien, that moment came when she was just five years old. She remembers the day her dad took her to a golf course in Abuja, where she saw a boy teeing…

My music is different

My first album was called "Green Card" and the feeling behind that was that I was living in America and I was supposed to get a green card. So, I called my album Green Card and moved back to Ghana. Since then, all my albums have been…

Tamara Walcott: Powerlifting saved me from myself

Tamara Walcott can still remember the first time she set foot in a powerlifting gym: the chalked hands, the strapped wrists, the yells and screams as lifters heaved weights off the floor. As she took in the scene, Walcott's competitive…

Love at first sight in Paris

Andye was only in Paris for three days. On day one, she jumped aboard the Metro train that would change her life forever. It was September 2016. Andye, born in Haiti and brought up in the US, was 25 and finishing up a Master's degree in…