Members of I AM A QUEEN standing shoulder to shoulder in a long line outdoors, smiling towards the camera

Women-led · Registered NPO 320-199 · South Africa

Every young woman, crowned in confidence.

We walk alongside young women aged 13–26 with mentorship, leadership development and community support — so every one of them recognises her value and lives her purpose.

102
Young women in the movement
13–26
The ages we walk with
4
Programmes running year-round
2025
Established · NPO 320-199

What we believe

Every young woman is valuable, capable and made for something particular. Our work is to make sure she knows it — because if she wants to be treated like a queen, she must first treat herself as one.

Our guiding philosophy

Our first year

Small enough to know every name. Serious enough to count.

How we measure
102

young women currently walking with us

4

community outreaches delivered

2

national gatherings hosted

100%

of our programmes free to every young woman

We would rather report honestly on a hundred young women than impressively on a thousand. Every figure on this site is one we can name, date and stand behind — and we publish what has not worked alongside what has.

A large group of community members, families and volunteers gathered outdoors at an I AM A QUEEN outreach The Giving Hand

Charity work

Practical support, delivered with dignity.

Through The Giving Hand we bring sanitary products, school supplies and essential resources to young women in under-resourced communities across South Africa. A girl should never miss a week of school because of something as ordinary as a sanitary pad.

How something is given matters as much as what is given. Our outreaches are run by young women from the communities we serve, handed over person to person, without queues, cameras or conditions.

  • Dignity packs with sanitary products for a full school term
  • Matric farewell support for members in their final year
  • School supplies, stationery and uniform essentials
  • Food and household support for families in acute need
  • Follow-up visits — we return to the same communities

How we work

Three commitments we do not bend on

01

Presence over programmes

A workshop can inspire a girl for a weekend. A mentor who remembers her name, her subjects and her mother's illness changes what she believes is possible. We measure our work in relationships sustained, not sessions delivered.

02

Led by the women it serves

I AM A QUEEN is founded, governed and run by women — many of them from the same communities as the girls in our circles. Leadership here is not something we teach from outside; it is something we hand over.

03

Dignity in every transaction

Nobody in our programmes is a case, a beneficiary or a photograph. Resources are given quietly and directly, and no young woman is ever asked to perform her need in order to receive support.

Members of I AM A QUEEN standing together outdoors
A girl joins because of a T-shirt, a friend, or a bag handed to her at an outreach. She stays because somebody asked what she wanted to become, and then remembered her answer the following Sunday.

What we have learned in a yearI AM A QUEEN Organisation

Members of I AM A QUEEN with their arms around one another at a community event

Who leads

A women-led organisation, by design.

Women founded this organisation, women govern it, and women run every programme inside it. That is a deliberate structural choice, not a description of who happened to volunteer.

A young woman deciding what she can become should be able to look at the people leading the room and see the answer already standing there. Our mentors are teachers, nurses, entrepreneurs, students and graduates — women who took the same roads our members are on now.

Read our story

Get involved

Three ways to stand behind this work

We are deliberately small and deliberately accountable. Whatever you bring — funding, time or a room to meet in — you will be told exactly where it went.

Partner

Companies, schools, foundations and community organisations fund programmes, host camps and open doors to opportunity for our members.

Become a partner

Mentor

Give an hour online every Sunday to a Queen Circle. We train, screen and support every mentor, and we ask for a full year — consistency is the whole point.

Apply to mentor

Give

Fund a term of sanitary products, a matric farewell, a place at the Leadership Camp or a whole community outreach. Every gift is accounted for and reported back.

Make a gift

Help us raise a generation of confident, purpose-driven young women.

Tell us what you have to offer — funding, mentorship, venues, skills or a community that needs us — and we will tell you honestly whether we can use it well.