This will be a unique, intimate event and show for Batonga at the Standard East Village Penthouse in New York, including special guest Tamron Hall as well as Batonga’s new Executive Director, Codou Diaw and wonderful program manager from Benin, Natacha Agbahoungba. There will be cocktails, food, an acoustic set by Angélique Kidjo and special conversation with Tamron. This will be an event not to miss!
Five-time Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo is one of the greatest and most unique artists in international music today, a creative force with thirteen albums to her name. Time Magazine has called her “Africa’s premier diva.” The BBC has included her in its list of the continent’s 50 most iconic figures, and in 2011 The Guardian listed her as one of their Top 100 Most Inspiring Women in the World. Forbes Magazine has ranked Angelique as the first woman in their list of the Most Powerful Celebrities in Africa. Angélique is also a committed philanthropist and champion of women and girls rights around the world. She co-founded the Batonga Foundation in 2006, to equip the hardest-to-reach young women and girls with knowledge and skills they need to be agents of change in their communities and in their own lives.
Today, the Batonga Foundation reaches over 8,000 young women and girls in Angelique's home country of Benin, empowering them to access education, find meaningful and dignified work, and become changemakers in their communities. Batonga has just expanded its work to Senegal, where it is positioned to reach another 6,000+ young women and girls in the coming months.
