This work – every word, every page – is not mine alone. It stands on the shoulders of love, sacrifice, and belief.
To my parents: you are the blueprint of strength and grace. Mum, your quiet power continues to echo through everything I am and everything I create. Dad, thank you for being my loudest cheerleader, the first person to tell me I could be anything, and then hold me to it. Your faith in me has always felt like home.
To my partner: thank you for holding space for me – for seeing the real work in the writing, in the dreaming, in the building. In a world that so often asks women to shrink to fit, your presence has made it safe to expand. You are proof that softness and strength can coexist in love.
To Zoe, my fierce and curious niece: may you grow up in a world where your voice is never questioned, and your dreams never doubted. You remind me why this work matters; not just for us, but for those still to come.
To my friends and chosen family across the world – from Blantyre to Brooklyn, Lilongwe to Redmond — your late-night calls, your laughter, and your unshakable belief in me have carried me through the hardest pages.
To my mentors and colleagues at the United Nations, the World Bank, the European Union, Microsoft, and every table where I’ve been the youngest, the only, or the first — thank you for the lessons, the challenges, and the doors you opened. You sharpened my thinking and widened my lens.
To the young people of Africa – especially the girls who dream bigger than their circumstances – this book, like all my work, is for you. You are my ‘why.’
To the teams at the Ntha Foundation and Kwathu Kollective: you have taken vision and made it real. Thank you for choosing to build with me, day after day, since 2018.
And to the ancestors whose strength I carry, and to my Creator – the source of my courage, my clarity, and my calling – thank you for making silence a space I could finally fill.
With love and reverence,
Nthanda Manduwi
Michigan State University, 2025
