Tangelic’s Sustainable Futures Coordinator, Katleho Queen Mojakisane, joins the Restless Women Podcast for a powerful talk on gender justice, youth leadership, and clean energy solutions. She’s building movements, empowering communities, and proving that climate action starts with the voices too often unheard.
Key Moments:
✅ How she founded Youth on the Rise to drive change in Lesotho & South Africa.
✅ The Sunrise Spectrum model: Co-created with Ghanaian women for community-led clean energy.
✅ Why women and youth MUST lead—not just benefit from—climate innovation.
✅ Mental health, anti-GBV, and digital literacy as tools for justice.
✅ A preview of Tangelic’s game-changing SEED Conference 2025.
💬 Your turn: How are women and youth driving climate action in YOUR community? Share below! ⬇️
👍 Like this video? Subscribe for more stories of impact, equity, and change. 🔔 Hit the bell so you never miss a conversation that moves the world forward.
#Tangelic #RestlessWomen #ClimateJustice #YouthPower #CleanEnergy #GenderEquity #SEED2025 #AfricaClimate #Podcast #SocialChange #SustainableLiving #CommunityFirst
Key Moments:
✅ How she founded Youth on the Rise to drive change in Lesotho & South Africa.
✅ The Sunrise Spectrum model: Co-created with Ghanaian women for community-led clean energy.
✅ Why women and youth MUST lead—not just benefit from—climate innovation.
✅ Mental health, anti-GBV, and digital literacy as tools for justice.
✅ A preview of Tangelic’s game-changing SEED Conference 2025.
💬 Your turn: How are women and youth driving climate action in YOUR community? Share below! ⬇️
👍 Like this video? Subscribe for more stories of impact, equity, and change. 🔔 Hit the bell so you never miss a conversation that moves the world forward.
#Tangelic #RestlessWomen #ClimateJustice #YouthPower #CleanEnergy #GenderEquity #SEED2025 #AfricaClimate #Podcast #SocialChange #SustainableLiving #CommunityFirst
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LearningTranscript
00:00Welcome to Roaming with Restless Women, real talk with wise, dynamic women leaders.
00:09I'm your host, Julie Noonan, CEO and founder of Intuitive Wisdom Coaching, and I'm living my dream life.
00:17I live and work in my RV, coaching senior women leaders as they navigate corporate politics, family drama, and personal goals to live their own dream lives.
00:28These women are restless. They are never done seeking new opportunities, learning, and creating value in the world.
00:36If you'd like to apply to be on the show, stick around to the end and I'll let you know how. Let's go.
00:45Welcome back to Roaming with Restless Women. Today I'm joined by a very special and wonderful guest.
00:52Her name is Queen, and I'm going to mess up her last name, but I'm going to try Mojakasane.
01:03I'm sorry.
01:05Queen is a visionary leader.
01:07She's dedicated to creating sustainable community-driven solutions that address climate change and energy poverty in Africa.
01:15As the Sustainable Futures Coordinator at Tangelic, Queen champions innovative programs that empower underserved communities by fostering equitable access to clean energy.
01:28With a strong background in project management, strategic communications, and stakeholder engagement, she works to build partnerships that amplify the impact of Tangelic's initiatives across the continent.
01:40She grew up in post-apartheid South Africa.
01:46She overcame and faced systemic challenges, shaping her resilient spirit and commitment to building equitable opportunities for others.
01:55Her life story is a testament to the power of determination, advocacy, and grassroots action to create meaningful change.
02:04Specifically, her biggest overarching passion is gender equity, and we're going to definitely be talking about that in this session.
02:17She is also the founder of Youth on the Rise, which is a nonprofit focused on youth empowerment.
02:24She has spearheaded initiatives addressing youth unemployment, education gaps, and gender-based violence in Lesotho and South Africa.
02:33She mobilized over 500 young leaders for the Lesotho Youth Summit and received the Future Africa Leaders Award in 2023 for her outstanding contributions to socio-economic development.
02:48Her impact extends across Africa.
02:50In Ghana, she co-organized the Ghana Central Expo, leading fundraising campaigns, facilitating health screenings for over 500 people, and supporting 300-plus local entrepreneurs.
03:05She's a recognized thought leader and frequently featured in prominent African media outlets, and actively contributes to research on youth empowerment, peace-building, and socioeconomic development.
03:18I'm telling you one thing, she is a busy woman.
03:22Welcome, Queen.
03:23Thank you for being on the show.
03:25Thank you so, so much.
03:27I can't beat the allegations.
03:30I am just one busy individual.
03:33I'm so grateful for being here.
03:35Well, thank you so much for applying.
03:37Let me just ask you, why did you apply to be on this particular show?
03:40You know, I really do want to be in spaces where women always want to be better, do better, you know, and inspire other women because, you know, the world is, it was built for the other gender, and we're trying to change that as much as we can.
04:06We're trying to change the norms, so we're saying to the younger girls, instead of thinking that only a man can do this, know that you can do it as well.
04:17So I think my passion aligns with what, you know, Restless Women is about, and this is why I actually applied.
04:26Very nice.
04:29Well, that's part of what I'm doing here as well.
04:31We all have to make sure that the younger generations coming up have the tools they need to forge a different world, a kind of world that is more geared toward equality across the genders, regardless of what gender you are.
04:46Tell me a little bit about your past, your upbringing, and what was it that inspired you to get into this particular area?
04:55All right.
04:57Thank you so much.
04:58So I was born and bred in Lesotho.
05:02It is a country inside South Africa.
05:06Not a lot of people know that there's another country inside South Africa.
05:11So I grew up, I was in South Africa and Lesotho, you know, concurrently, but I spent a lot of time in Lesotho as well.
05:19And growing up in a developing nation where there's a lot of object poverty, there's a lot of bureaucracy in the government, corruption, you get to see how that impacts the society as a whole.
05:37And we see, especially on the young people and even further, the young women.
05:45So there's a lot of crime resulting from the poverty that the society is facing amongst young people.
05:52There's a lot of gangsterism there.
05:55There's a lot of inability of young children to afford computer literacy because the only schools that offer such an education are overpriced and the rest of the population cannot afford it.
06:10There are a lot of really many socioeconomic issues that arise.
06:15Unemployment, for instance, it's, for lack of a better word, it's ridiculous.
06:23It is very hard for a young person to, you know, find a job that he or she studied for in, like, where I come from.
06:35And this may sound very devastating, but I can assure the readers that the current state of things is worse than what I'm actually describing.
06:45Because, so this is essentially the reality that I grew up in, even myself, I had to experience what you call a home burglary, for instance, an armed robbery.
07:02And, you know, this is something that is very normal there because people are trying to survive one way or the other.
07:11And we see, I saw, I'm very observant and I observed how this is affecting us now.
07:21Someone is an armed robber who robs another person.
07:26Now the person is also traumatized, right?
07:28They have to seek therapy and all that.
07:32So it's just an ending cycle of maybe the kind of challenges that we face in the developing country that I am from.
07:42And so upon realizing, you know, the gap and the problems that we're facing, I decided to be a problem solver and actually start initiatives aimed at targeting these very problems that I faced in a lot of, in a variety of ways, really.
08:00This is where I started the kids in tech initiative targeting those children, we cannot afford computer literacy education by actually, you know, teaching them about, you know, what a world looks like when you're tech savvy.
08:16And teaching them in a language that they can understand, giving them tips on how to actually get into a place where maybe they can take advantage of, for example, in institutions of higher learning, encouraging them to consider skill, taking courses such as IT coding, so on and so forth, so that they can see the opportunities that they can have when they have those skills.
08:42Now started as well as, you know, targeting, when we talk about gender equity, I thought to myself that the moment I was robbed at home, right, you know, the, one of the questions or one of the persistent thoughts that I experienced was, okay, I don't really care about maybe what these people are going to take from my home, but I care about what they could do to me as a woman who
09:12can't fight them physically. And because I know how gender based violence is prevalent, that was what I was actually afraid of, right. And then I saw that you know what, the many workshops that we're doing for the young girls, they're very important, but something needs to be done for the young boys as well, so that they're educated about what gender equity really is, why it's important,
09:39why they should really live a crime-free life, why, you know, some of those social, social issues that we're facing, that are actually caused by the male gender. Because when you look at the perpetrators of crime, it's mainly the males. That's what statistics say. And if you want to establish an equitable,
10:02a gender equitable society, then both genders must be carried along. And so I started mentorship sessions for young boys, both in my local area, like in different high schools. And I even went as far as going to those in the juvenile centers, who had actually done, you know, crimes, connected them with psychologists, you know, actually encouraged them to turn a new leaf,
10:29and, you know, choose a life of no crime, have a different outlook on life. Then we talk about the entrepreneurship summits that I initiated as well to try to bridge that gap between unemployment, poverty, you know, and these are the many initiatives that I, that I pioneered.
10:52I'm obviously can't talk about one after the other by name. But this was how, you know, I found my passion in actually advocating for marginalized groups, and empowering those who maybe without my help, wouldn't be empowered. And that was how I now won the Future Africa Leaders Award in Nigeria in 2023.
11:17Yes. And that's essentially how my journey started.
11:22So, so where did you go to get funding to help you start some of these programs?
11:28Yeah, I think it's very important the outlook that I maybe have on the state of things and perhaps the solutions, right?
11:38I believe that I, we should work with what we have to get to where we want to get to instead of depending on maybe an outside aid, because now when we did an outside aid, we may have to carry out the agenda of our donor, right?
11:57So perfect.
11:58So I worked with what I have. I worked with what I have. I approached the local, I leveraged on the resource, the little resources that were there in the community, trying to, okay, we have a little, an organization focusing on empowering boys through football.
12:21Let me approach them and say, hey, I also want to put our empower boys in this way, like, how can I join hands with you to maybe say, can you provide me with a venue to host my seminar?
12:35Then I go to another organization, or I go to a church, or I just speak with my fellow students to say, hey, you guys have laptops, you know what, can the 30 of us just find a venue where we can just place those laptops, and then the children can come in to learn?
12:54And then, so it's actually a lot of problem solving, thinking critically outside the box, which is what is needed for, you know, thriving systems, really.
13:05So that was actually how I did it. I did it with little to no funding. Maybe someone who works at a company will say, you know what, I'll sponsor the certificates that you're going to award your participants, you know?
13:18So it was those little building blocks that now made this whole initiative a success.
13:26So you mentioned your peers. So where did you go to school? Because obviously you're incredibly educated. So where did you get to go to school? And how did that really impact what the things that you saw in your problem solving skill?
13:48Yes. So fortunately, yes, I am academically sound. So I was then, after high school, able to get a sponsorship from the government to do an international baccalaureate.
14:04And now this is an American system that maybe the, it's equivalent to the high school diploma, but after my high school, I have to do two more years because of the inefficiencies of my, the country's education system, right?
14:20So the international baccalaureate has a lot of emphasis on holistic, on a holistic approach to learning.
14:28And we have the community engagement aspect of it. We call it CAS.
14:33And I don't know if you know about IB, but yeah, so we have IB and that is where we're encouraged to do more community work.
14:45So because of the passion that I already had and because this was a prerequisite for the students to do community work, I was like, great.
14:55Now I'm going to hijack all of you. We're going to do this because I have great ideas.
15:01So that was how, you know, in terms of the support that I got from the school as well, it was really important because they endorsed a lot of letters that I wrote to these different organizations because they're like, you're doing what we're asking you to do.
15:15So this is more about leveraging thinking outside the box and critically, like I've already said.
15:23This episode is sponsored by me. So as a special gift to you, our listeners, I offer a free one in one 15 minute breakthrough session, bring a problem and experience how coaching works to see if it could be a value to you.
15:37Sign up for an available time on my website, intuitivewisdomcoach.com.
15:42What specific, besides education and the threat, you know, the physical threats that women and girls in your society and actually all around the world, it's not just your society, but it's more prevalent there when there's a lot of poverty around.
15:57What other specific inequities do you find when you're looking around at the women and girls in your location?
16:09I think it is the access to education.
16:14That's number one.
16:16That is definitely at the top of my list, because if I didn't have the resources to be learned the way that I am, to have.
16:31So I want to mention that I then, to go to university, got a scholarship from the MasterCard Foundation.
16:40This was very pivotal because some of the things that come with the scholarships include little, not little even, but things like laptops, things like ensuring that you're able to eat, you're able to do this.
16:56So without that assistance, I wouldn't have a laptop and be speaking to you right now, you see.
17:02So the little dots connect.
17:04I wouldn't have been able to go to school to do my undergraduate degree.
17:09And this is why it's important for organizations, you know, to actually focus on empowering, you know, the young people, especially the young women.
17:18Because even for me, despite the passion that I had, the critical thinking, I still needed to be empowered, right?
17:25So that I can, you know, advance the work that I'm doing, which is where I'm at now.
17:30I've totally, the trajectory of what I'm doing has totally, you know, taken off because of the different help that I, types of help that I got from different organizations.
17:44I love the whole thing that you have going on with tying in sustainability with your mission of gender equity.
17:58That makes total sense to me.
18:00And it kind of goes along with the education.
18:02So tell me about how you got into Tangelic and what that mission is and how you enable the, enable your mission through that as well.
18:12Oh, thank you so much.
18:15I just want to echo what you said about maybe if someone were privileged, definitely come into these parts of the world or even other areas that are, you know, experiencing war.
18:32We know what's happening right now in Palestine and, you know, so that would offer them a lot more perspective.
18:39And I couldn't agree more.
18:44So circling back to what I do at Tangelic, I'm the Sustainable Futures Coordinator at Tangelic.
18:56So this means that I do a lot of work in stakeholder engagement, ensuring that there is gender equity in our programs and, you know, talking about thought leadership because of the experience that I have leading various initiatives.
19:12And Tangelic essentially is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to addressing energy poverty and climate change across Africa.
19:24So it is committed to community empowerment, gender equity, like I've already said, and sustainable development.
19:32And so we, we, we, we're aiming to, to do this.
19:38And in what I would call three tiers, the first part is what we call the Sunrise Spectrum Initiative.
19:46And then the second part is an intubation program called the GCEEI.
19:52And then another leg would be the PACE Initiative.
19:57This is more like a think tank, knowledge exchange system for collecting the data that we're going to be using to carry out these other initiatives.
20:07So the Sunrise Spectrum Initiative essentially is a model where we're empowering communities with clean energy access through solar home systems, clean cookstoves and community solar microgrids.
20:24So, but in such areas where there's no renewable energy and there's a lot of corruption, there's a lot going on in Ghana with regards to the mining, illegal mining disaster happening there.
20:38And so they really haven't been able to solve the energy crisis that they're facing.
20:45And this is an important issue because it's affecting how local communities are able to develop.
20:52Some communities are stuck in the past because they can't catch up with what the world is, you know, is currently going through, the revolution that the world is currently going through.
21:06And this means that though they can easily be left a generation behind if this is not addressed, which is why we're here to say who are.
21:16Because when you look at the geographical location of Ghana, for instance, it is near the equator, meaning that it has a lot of hours of sunlight.
21:24When you look at maybe also the legislation of Ghana, for instance, they do have, they do encourage a lot of this renewable energy activities and essentially the need for energy itself.
21:36So it places Ghana as a perfect location for our flagship program, which we do hope to replicate in many other countries.
21:45But for now, in 2026, we want to launch the Sunrise Spectrum Initiative there.
21:51So that is about what the Sunrise Spectrum Initiative would be about.
21:55But then we also realized that in order to empower communities, we have to do it in such a way that after we donate these items that they can use, they should be able to maintain them.
22:09And this has a lot to do with their economic capabilities or the economic activity going on in such a place, right?
22:17So now we're thinking, how do we empower the entrepreneurs in these areas, particularly in the clean energy space, to, you know, keep the enterprises going on in a sustainable manner.
22:31We do this through, we can do this through vocational training, investment into their enterprises, providing mentorship, training.
22:41I've already spoken about seed funding.
22:46So this is what we're looking at so that there can be an increase in the economic activity going on in this area.
22:53And we're able to further solve the problem of energy poverty that we're trying to address by letting the young critical thinkers on ground do it for themselves, right?
23:05And then also we have the PACE Initiative.
23:09This is the Pan-African Climate Exchange.
23:11Where we want to drive continent-wide climate action through knowledge sharing, collaboration, and innovative financing mechanisms.
23:20We want the people in these areas to be able to carry out studies for issues that affect them and then come up with plausible solutions that the government can adopt in order to address these problems.
23:35We, I recently spoke at the G20 Women Empowerment Conference here in South Africa.
23:44And one of the pertinent issues that was being discussed was that we don't have enough data.
23:52We don't have enough information.
23:55We normally rely, especially in Africa, we normally rely on research carried out by, let's say, Oxford scholars or Harvard scholars.
24:04And in as much as this is good, we appreciate it, it would be even better if we carried out our research ourselves.
24:12And this is why it's important that there's a holistic approach to solving this problem.
24:24We don't rely on outside sources saying research says, but we don't know where the research is coming from, you know.
24:32And we have to take initiative.
24:35So this is essentially the three-tiered model that Angelic is looking at.
24:40And I think it is wonderful because it speaks to a lot of the aspects that I'm already passionate about as an advocate.
24:48And essentially, yeah, it is very important for us to interweave, I think, what we would call them indigenous knowledge systems, right, into the modern systems that we're trying to incorporate into our societies.
25:07I was speaking to someone from the University of Johannesburg, a lecturer, and she was telling me that it is, you know, someone had asked her about how AI, you know, is going to impact the African development, this and that.
25:26And she was like, a lot of these assumptions being made about how AI is going to impact us does not mean anything to us because we don't even know.
25:38It doesn't speak to us because, first, the data wasn't collected by us.
25:44And when someone from the outside says this is the projection of, let's say, how this is going to impact this, there has to be an incorporation of the indigenous people.
25:56There has to be a localized approach to, you know, carrying out these things.
26:01So I really agree.
26:02I really agree.
26:04And this is what we aim to do at Tangelic.
26:07And I think we have something really good going on.
26:13I 100% agree.
26:15I'm thrilled, thrilled that you guys are doing this.
26:19And I have three questions that I like to ask at the end of every interview.
26:25Before I ask those questions, do you have anything else you'd like to share and make sure our audience hears?
26:32I think I would just like the audience to be part of what Tangelic is doing in terms of visiting our social media sites, you know, visiting our website, supporting.
26:47We're always looking out for collaboration, more ideas, innovative ways to solve these problems.
26:55So one can find us at www.tangeliclife.org.
27:01And then they can now see and navigate the website on how to become a part of Tangelic and just follow through on the work that we're doing.
27:12That's amazing.
27:14I will definitely make sure that that information is in the show notes.
27:18And folks, if you are at all interested in developing your mind and your brain and thinking outside of the United States for a change,
27:26please go there and see what these folks are doing for gender equity, for climate change, for all of this great, beautiful stuff that they're doing in their countries to make sure that their people are getting to be able to be there, live their best lives.
27:44Okay, I have three questions that I ask at the end, if you don't mind.
27:48First one is, please close your eyes.
27:55And I'm going to say two words.
27:59And when I say those words, I want you to notice what you're seeing in your mind and then open your eyes and describe it to me.
28:06Okay, the two words are wise women.
28:14I'm seeing women who have been able to utilize the resources, whether little or abandoned, that they have, which it's great to come from both sides of the spectrum.
28:29Women who have utilized the resources that they have to bring on younger women, empower them, bring them into these spaces.
28:39The next question is, where do you like to roam?
28:45I live, even though I'm currently speaking to you from Johannesburg, I live in Cape Town, South Africa.
28:52It has beautiful ocean views.
28:57The most, one of the most beautiful I've ever seen.
29:00Just, you know, the ocean merging with the mountains is something that is awesome.
29:08I'm always in awe.
29:09So every time I go to Cape Town, the ocean, it just soothes me.
29:17And I'd say that's where I like to roam.
29:20There you go.
29:21Perfect.
29:23And my final question.
29:26What makes you restless in a good way?
29:29What I do.
29:35It's very hard to single out, you know, because what I do is closely aligned with what I'm passionate about.
29:43And when, let's say, a new aspect of it, like if I have a project, you know, the adrenaline rush is something.
29:56I can't even explain it.
29:59And just carrying out the work that I do is really fulfilling, makes me really happy, makes me restless.
30:07And that is it, really.
30:12That's beautiful.
30:13So thank you so much, Queen.
30:16Thank you so much for being on the episode.
30:18I really, really appreciate it.
30:20We'll make sure that we get the message out there.
30:23And we will probably have you back in a year or two just to see how you're doing.
30:28How does that sound?
30:29That sounds phenomenal.
30:30I'd love to be back and talk more about what has been happening, the progress so far.
30:38It's really exciting.
30:40Julie Noonan here.
30:42Thank you so much for listening to Roaming with Restless Women.
30:45If you're a successful senior woman leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.intuitivewisdomcoach.com.
30:54If you enjoyed this interview, please share this episode on social media and make sure to subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes.
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