Spotlight on Sseko Designs

Daenel "Dani" Vaughn-Tucker knows how fortunate she is to be a woman living in America, where she has access to all the education she could ever want. In many countries, it's not so simple. So when she discovered Sseko Designs, a Uganda-based fashion brand that provides jobs and scholarship opportunities for women in East Africa, she was thrilled not just to wear the signature sandals with fabric straps, but to become a member of the Sseko Brave Collective.

Members of the collective commit to completing one "Sseko Step" each month, such as writing a letter to a woman in Uganda, hosting a trunk show of Sseko products or telling others about the Sseko mission.

"Women in other countries are often the sole breadwinners, and with education they can learn skills to support their families," says Dani.

To date, Sseko has enabled 47 women to attend university and employs 50 women in Uganda, according to ssekodesigns.com. What's more, the organization states that for every dollar a woman in a developing economy earns, she reinvests 90 percent of it back into her family.

"I'm truly passionate about empowering women to do more and be more through education," Dani wrote in her blog after joining the Sseko Brave Collective. "And as a mother of five, I know how important it is to get an education and to be an example to my children."

Read more about Sseko at www.ssekodesigns.com, or check them out locally at Philanthropy and Concepts Styling Salon in Cape Girardeau