DETROIT (WXYZ) — Rev. Dr. Adrienne Booth Johnson worked her way to the executive suite of Coca-Cola over her 25 years in the company. This alone is a huge accomplishment for any woman, but she's much more than a corporate executive.
FULL INTERVIEW: Rev. Dr. Adrienne Booth Johnson talk about helping in Africa
Climbing the corporate ladder wasn't an easy feat for Dr. Johnson. As a single mom in her teens, she had every excuse to give up, but she chose to persevere through adversity.
"I never let go of my dreams. I knew that someday I was going to be somebody. I knew someday I was going to help somebody," said Dr. Johnson.
Dr. Johnson wore many hats throughout her early life - wife, mom, corporate executive, and champion of women.
That's right, in the midst of her already hectic life, she told me she felt called to more, so she jumped on a plane to Africa. During her time over there, she discovered there was a common need among all of the villages she visited- women are in desperate need of sanitary products.
"I find out where the village is and go meet with the chief of the village or queen mother and talk to people and just find out what they need," she says. "And that's how I found out they need sanitary pads."
Rather than just giving these women sanitary pads, Dr. Johnson came up with a better idea- she founded WO YE BRA, a non-profit that creates women empowerment programs. The main focus of the programs is teaching women a skill, like sewing, and then teaching them how to leverage universal business practices like marketing, sales, customer relations, and financial literacy.
The first thing these women learned was how to sew sanitary pads.
"We give away sanitary pads, so you'll have some, but we also give away sewing machines, fabric… but most importantly, we teach them and empower them," said Dr. Johnson.
It doesn't stop with WO YE BRA. Dr. Johnson enlisted the help of a girls club at Cass Tech called Great Girls. They cut the fabric for the sanitary pads, and then Dr. Johnson takes it over to Ghana for the girls over there to sew together.
"I bought fabric, and the girls at Cass Tech cut out the fabric for the sanitary pad, and I took it to Ghana. So I thought about it and said Well, wait a minute… wouldn't it be great if the girls at Cass Tech saw the girls they actually gave the pads to… and so I did a Zoom!" she says.
Dr. Johnson was able to connect the girls from Cass Tech with their peers in Ghana. Some of the girls from Cass Tech told me it made the world feel a lot smaller and made their hard work worth it.
Dr. Johnson told me she's thrilled to see girls here in Detroit and across the world empowered by hard work, and she hopes she can be an inspiration to other women that no matter the circumstances you're facing now, it doesn't have to be the end of your story.
