00:05Ghanaian women are doing it for themselves and they're not asking for permission. I found three
00:11ladies from Ghana that are taking it on and slaying. Coming in at number three, architect
00:18Nana Akua Berme. She's built her own lane in an industry that wasn't exactly built for women.
00:27I literally started this firm with my baby in a court next to me. Half of my staff have
00:35been having their babies whilst working and it's become something of a character of this
00:43firm. While raising a child, she was also building one of Ghana's most exciting studios. But why
00:51did she choose architecture? What's special about architecture is that it's so specific.
00:57No two clients are the same. No two sites are the same. No two needs or briefs are the same.
01:03For every project, we look at it really from a blank canvas and the design process is worked
01:09out from asking the right questions and teasing out what is the most suitable for this particular
01:18project. Architecture has long been a boys club, so known as making sure more young women get
01:24through the door. We are a largely female architectural firm. Somehow women have always liked to work
01:32with us because we do make room for our special needs, which is pregnancy, maternity and all that.
01:40There's so many people who are trained here of the same like-minded people who have gone out and had
01:47been doing marvelous things. Not just building spaces, but making sure more women are taking up spaces
01:54too. Love it. And that brings me to number two on my superwoman list, Sue Aram Kumar. Jeweler, but not
02:03as you know it.
02:06I've always been very interested in the concept of recycling.
02:10In undergrad, my thesis was on recycling of metal in Ghana and my eyes were open to so many things.
02:18Sue started her brand with one thing in mind, protecting Ghana's natural resources. So she doesn't use newly mined gold.
02:28We have a buyback program, which we initiated about five years ago, where we encourage customers to walk in
02:35and sell their old gold products to us for cash.
02:39A master jeweler, her piece is incredible. But has it been easy in a male dominated industry?
02:46My mom is having men work for you. It's been challenging. I've had men come and work for me and
02:52after a few months,
02:53they'll tell me they can't take instructions from a woman. So I should give instructions to another man so that
02:59the man can give them the instructions.
03:00But I can't directly address them. And it's been really challenging. I've had I've had it all.
03:05But I think I'm a strong person and I know this is what I'm meant to do. And I'm just
03:10doing it.
03:13And at number one, Leslie Loko, the first African woman to curate at the Venice Architectural Biennale.
03:22And yes, that's really major.
03:27So for me, Africa has always been the place of the future has always been the testing ground for the
03:32future in a way.
03:33And again, it comes back to the point that we are really we're simultaneously the world's youngest continent and the
03:38world's oldest continent.
03:40You know, everybody on this planet came from Africa at one point at this biennale.
03:44She shifted the entire lineup. More than half the voices now African.
03:49And that's in a space that's always been seen as very European.
03:55Leslie has always been ahead of the curve. Even 20 years ago, she was designing buildings differently.
04:02Like this, her home in Accra, made partly with clay bricks. Even then, she was ahead of her time.
04:10Depending really on the way you live, you have to a lesser or greater extent control over your environment.
04:17And I think the trick for many kind of modernizing African cities is how to adapt a way of life,
04:25a way of working, a way of living that was really designed for a different kind of climate for this
04:29one.
04:30Is there anything Leslie can't do?
04:33World-renowned architect, academic with a PhD, oh, and an international best-selling author.
04:43World-renowned architect.
04:44Being an architect shaped me as a writer.
04:46Somehow a biennale is the perfect bringing together of two worlds.
04:50Growing up in Ghana, my first window onto the rest of the world was through books.
04:56And there you have it. Three Ghanaian women who aren't just slaying, they're staying.
Comments