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lumni parent Lotte Davis left Africa when she was just nine years old, but her connection to the continent never left her. Decades after moving away, she returned with her family to build schools in some of the most impoverished areas of Africa and to fulfil the hope of an education for a new generation of African children. Growing up in the 60’s, Lotte was passionate about the importance of education for women and pursued a university education “to have a voice and start making a difference.” Armed with her education, savvy marketing and design skills and incredible determination, Lotte and her husband John founded AG Hair in 1989, now a highly successful hair care business whose products are found in thousands of salons throughout North America. After their daughters Courtney ’02 and Mackenzie ’05 had graduated, Lotte “realized that I had both the time, and through the business, the resources to help other girls who were less fortunate to try to attain their potential. I was born in Africa and I think I left a piece of myself back there as I’ve always been drawn back to it. I did a lot of research and found out that there is nowhere else in the world where women suffer from more poverty and injustice than in sub-Saharan Africa. So that was my starting place.” The statistics are shocking. According to the Women Leading Change website, 75% of girls in sub-Saharan Africa have never been to school and 24 million girls cannot afford to go to school. Through AG Hair, the Davis family created the Women Leading Change Foundation to help African girls become the catalysts for change in their own society. After locating an NGO based in Africa to assist them, in 2008 the family travelled to Africa, visiting the most marginalized rural areas. “Once we got there and started visiting some schools it just became blatantly apparent - this is what we need to do. And the sense of joy that you get from being able to facilitate this is addictive – you can’t stop doing it once you start.” The family had already built a water project that serviced three villages. Now it was time to start building schools. Funds are raised through the sale of AG Hair products, fundraising and through partnerships. In 2012 the
foundation partnered with Chatters Salons throughout Canada to raise funds to improve one of the schools. Chatters has committed to raise at least $100,000. In 2012 the foundation began to focus on providing scholarships as well, in order to assist students to go to university. Asked why they chose to focus on women, Lotte explained, “There is such an imbalance in Africa. The imbalance that I experienced growing up in the 60’s is nothing compared to what happens in Africa. Yet when women get knowledge, they share it with the community and they develop a great sense of confidence with the education they receive, so even if they never leave the area, they have the confidence to help other women. They marry later, they have children later, they have fewer children and they make sure that their children get an education. So it changes the whole cycle.” Of that first trip to Africa, Courtney recalls that, “It was amazing. We explored rural areas with horrible conditions that you can’t even imagine – but beautiful kids who were so eager to be part of a school. What really brought it home was meeting the women. We had a lot of opportunities to meet younger women and learn what they’ve been through. When we went into Uganda we met some of the older girls in schools who were really working hard to get their education, and I could relate to that. We were on two completely different continents pursuing our education, but we were both working towards the same goal. So we shared that same passion, and that really spoke to me. These girls were trying to go forward and change their lives.”
Lotte & Courtney Davis
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