Two spectacular young women whose talents in the arts have projected them unto the world stage will this week appear on African Voices Changemakers, the CNN magazine programme sponsored by Globacom.
They are Yvonne Anuli Orji, a Nigerian-American actress reputed for her role as Molly in the Home Box Office series Insecure, and Congo’s Anifa Mvuemba, creator of fashion label, Hanifa, whose 3D runway fashion show recently took the world by storm.
Born on December 2, 1983, in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria, Orji relocated with her family to Maryland in the United States of America when she was six years old. Her parents, like most Africans nursed the dream of their daughter becoming a medical doctor, lawyer, pharmacist, or engineer, but she was drawn to comedy as a graduate student when she performed stand-up in the talent portion of a beauty pageant.
She subsequently decided to pursue a career in comedy after graduating from George Washington University with multiple degrees including a Masters in Public Health to the delight of her parents.
She was at TEDx Wilmington Salon in 2017 to talk about “The wait is sexy” where she explained her reasons for abstaining from sex before marriage. Her works include Love that Girl, 2011 Sex (Therapy) With the Jones (2013), Jane the Virgin, 2017 and the soar-away television series Insecure which has aired since 2016.
Mvuemba, 29, who created the fashion label Hanifa also moved with her family to America from the Democratic Republic of Congo when she was a toddler. Her current fashion line dubbed Pink Label Congo was inspired by her homeland.
Her fashion career got a boost this year when she braved the challenge of Covid-19 by holding a virtual fashion show streamed over Instagram Live, during which each garment appeared in 3D against a black backdrop as if worn by invisible models strutting the podium in catwalks. First of its kind, the show caught the attention of thousands of Hanifa’s 250,000 followers who tuned in to watch and share the video.
African Voices Changemakers will be on DSTV on Saturday at 12.30 p.m., 5.30 p.m. and 8.30 p.m. Other repeat broadcasts come up on Sunday at 5.00 a.m., 9.30 a.m. and 8.30 p.m., with more repeats on Monday and Tuesday at 5.30 a.m. and 6.30 p.m. respectively.