BLACK DIAMONDS is a Non-profit Organisation that aims to empower young people and help them tap into their full potential through school visits and talks.

The name is a celebration and appreciation of how life moulds young black children into icons and legends of the future.

Our vision is to inspire the youth of our country to recognise their talents and harness their gifts, to help the disadvantaged youth not to be discouraged by their surroundings but instead be motivated by them.

HI, I’M MANTOA.

I am a 2nd year law student. I own a small business that sells hair care products and work as a fundraiser for Black Diamonds Africa (BDA).

I started BDA because of my high school experience. I was fortunate enough to be able to attend a school that was properly resourced and I realised that others weren’t after I had received a very bad mark. Helping students that are less fortunate became something that I wanted to do, something that I thought about a lot.

So I started bringing my idea to life by gathering people and the more I did the more I realised how misinformed other students were about certain things. Most importantly how sex education wasn’t being taught properly in Life Orientation classes with teachers giving the excuse “it’s a parents job” but on the other hand parents think it’s the teachers job. This is when I started wanting to educate girls about what I know. Empowering girls to love themselves enough to take care of themselves physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.

Black Diamonds also strives to empower young women to be intentional and focus on their own dreams and goals instead of building themselves up to be qualified by society as “wife material”.

To truly instill that burning desire to do things for themselves in the girl child, Black Diamonds aims to change the narrative that is perpetuated by a lack of information and intersociety information exchange on how to attain certain things and unlock opportunities. Presently, most role models and successful people only share cryptic insights into how they ‘made it, ‘ and until that changes, the problems that plague the girl child, will continue to have an accelerated impact on their futures.