BOISE, Idaho — One Idahoan has been named a 2024 CNN Hero for her philanthropic work in Africa.
Payton McGriff, alumni of University of Idaho, is the founder and CEO of Style Her Empowered, or SHE, the non-profit that sponsors education for girls in the country of Togo.
What started as a college project for Payton has grown into a non-profit organization that now sponsors the cost of education 2,000 girls in Africa.
The program provides vital resources to help girls in Togo overcome any financial barriers to education.
Specifically, SHE pays for the students’ school supplies, tuition fees, uniforms, tutoring, and even hygiene products.
“In Togo, specifically, 69% of the rural population lives below $1.90 per day. So the average education level for girls is just two to three years. So education is in many aspects of privilege for people in Togo. Our goal is to make that something that every girl and every student has access to," Payton said.
SHE has a success rate of 99.1% from students passing classes and national exams.
One of the program’s standout initiatives is its “uniforms that grow,” a design that allow uniform dresses to grow by six sizes and adds an additional 12 inches in length. The dress has also gone viral on social media which you can view here.
Ideally, the uniforms that grow would fit girls for years and then be passed down for future girls being sponsored.
Nothing goes to waste as the fabric scraps of the uniforms are recycled as reusable menstrual pads for the girls.
The uniforms are made by local seamstresses employed by SHE, providing more jobs for women of low-income backgrounds.
The women are paid salaries that are 75% higher than Togo’s minimum wage.
The seamstresses receive benefits such as paid maternity leave, unlimited sick leave, and free childcare, to combat female-specific barriers in Togo that have prevented women from education and employment in the past.
The SHE employment program includes a "paid-to-learn" model. With this, women without formal education, can also be educated while working and earning a living.
Payton runs SHE from Idaho, but SHE is also largely led locally by women in Togo who know and understand the needs of their own community.
Some girls have gone through the SHE sponsorship program to graduate high school and are now employed by SHE.
Payton said there are currently 31 former SHE students that are now attend a university for higher education.
“A lot of our students dream of becoming doctors, nurses and really helping the communities that they come from, which I think is always been our goal, that our students can kind of go and become the change makers in their own communities,” Payton told KTVB.
Payton said her mission is to create lasting change in Togo by ensuring that the program continues to be led by local women for generations to come.
Payton hopes to expand into more communities across Africa. She shared her gratitude for being named a 2024 CNN Hero because of the impact it has had on SHE.
It led to SHE being able to sponsor an additional 500 girls and partnerships with new business partners.
Payton said the exposure is what largely helps SHE’s mission of expanding into new communities.
Payton shared that a single $50 donation can fund an entire school year for one girl in Togo.
To contribute to the mission of SHE, visit the donation page here.
CNN has also set up a Go Fund Me for SHE.