Joyce Banda is a Malawian Politician, She’s the Former, First Female President in Africa and the second head of state after Queen Elizabeth II. She was vice president (2009–12) and President (2012–14) of Malawi.
She started her career as a secretary, a well-known public figure in Malawi. She had served in various roles as a Member of Parliament, Minister of Gender and Child Welfare, and as Foreign Minister. Before her active career in politics, she was the founder of the Joyce Banda Foundation, founder of the National Association of Business Women (NABW), Young Women Leaders Network and the Hunger Project. In 2014, Forbes named President Banda as the 40th most powerful woman in the world and the most powerful woman in Africa.
She was born on the 12th of April, 1950. She has a Cambridge School Certificate, a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Early Childhood Education from Columbus University (an unaccredited distance education institution), a Bachelor of Social Studies in Gender Studies from Atlantic International University (also a distance learning institution) and a Diploma in Management of NGOs from the International Labour Organization (ILO) Centre in Turin, Italy.
Joyce Banda has been involved with many grassroots projects with women since the age of 25 to bring about policy change, particularly in education. She founded the Joyce Banda Foundation for Better Education. She founded the Young Women Leaders Network, National Association of Business Women and the Hunger Project in Malawi. She (jointly with President Joaquim Chissano of Mozambique) was awarded the 1997 Africa Prize for Leadership for the Sustainable End of Hunger by the Hunger Project. She used the prize money to fund the building of the Joyce Banda foundation for children.In 2006, she received the International Award for the Health and Dignity of Women for her dedication to the rights of the women of Malawi by the Americans for United Nations Population Fund.
She also served as commissioner for “Bridging a World Divided” alongside personalities such as Bishop Desmond Tutu, and United Nations Human Rights Commissioner, Mary Robinson. Banda was also member of the Advisory Board for Education in Washington DC, and on the advisory board for the Federation of World Peace and Love in Taiwan (China).
We celebrate an Amazon.
A Woman of Her Kind, an inspiration to women and girls in Africa.
