Our Story

Founded in 2021, The Women’s Career Collective (TWCC) is a bold, community-driven movement empowering young women from underserved communities in Sierra Leone with expert, woman-to-woman mentorship and career-defining opportunities. We provide tailored access to professional training, career coaching, job placements, and connections to top organizations and businesses—ensuring that more women break through systemic barriers to employment and leadership.

What began as a single mentorship relationship transformed into a vision. TWCC’s Founder, Mariama Wurie, witnessed firsthand how one connection could open up a world of possibilities—and redefined what access to networks, knowledge, and resources could mean for women across generations.

In Sierra Leone, only a limited cohort of women have access to the networks, mentorship, and industry-specific knowledge needed to secure and sustain leadership roles. These women have become leaders across their industries. However, the majority of girls and women remain excluded. TWCC was created to change that.

We partner with high-achieving women leaders across sectors, employers across multiple inudstries, training institutes, financial service providers, and resource hubs to mentor, equip, and connect underserved young women to their dream career pathways. Our focus is on supporting women from families with a legacy of informal employment—ensuring that they become the first in their families to secure formal, dignified work, and break cycles of generational poverty in their communities.

Our Theory of Change

Our community-led, collective-action model is grounded in co-creation and co-leadership. At TWCC, mentees are not passive recipients—they actively shape and lead our mentorship initiatives and all programs designed to expand access to career-building opportunities. This participatory approach is rooted in real-world, experiential learning, forming the foundation of our two-tiered Theory of Change (ToC).

The first tier of our ToC asserts that when mentees engage in practical, real-life experiences—such as building a personalized career roadmap with a mentor, crafting CVs and cover letters, navigating job searches, securing internships, or launching start-ups with mentor support—they gain the critical technical skills and applied knowledge necessary to thrive in today’s competitive workforce.

Recognizing that career mobility also depends on who you know, not just what you know, the second tier of our ToC focuses on the power of networks. Our mentors leverage their professional reputations and connections to provide direct job recommendations and tailored application support, bridging the gap between potential and opportunity.

Together, these two tiers catalyze a transformative socio-economic shift—enabling our mentees, many of whom are entering the formal workforce for the first time, to secure dignified employment and disrupt cycles of generational poverty in their communities.

Applied learning through expert project-based mentorships = capacity building

Network building = connections & direct references for employment

Career coaching & development whilst employed = sustained capacity building & cyclical support

Mentee Stories

Through TWCC's pilot phase, my mentor surrounded me with her network of highly accomplished professionals in our field! She taught me how to edit my CV, job hunt, and conduct myself in interviews. The TWCC way is for mentors to leverage their network to recommend us for jobs. This is crucial because this is the key to the job market these days. People will stay in their socio-economic bracket, if they are not recommended for jobs outside of their network— reproducing cycles of informal work for disenfranchised women. I was recommended by my mentor for a job at Innovation SL, an Entrepreneurship Support Organisation (ESO), in October 2022. The recommendation was very timely because I was desperately searching for a job at that time.

Since I joined InnoSL, I have been progressing steadily from being hired as a trainee for 3 months to being a permanent staff and I am currently serving as manager for one of the key Portfolios in the company; the Incubation Portfolio is responsible for incubating start ups in terms of validating their business ideas and developing a minimum viable product for testing by their target customers.

Through my work at Innovation SL/InnoSL, I have grown so much as an individual and I have also learnt so much. This would not have been possible without TWCC.
I am eternally grateful for the opportunity TWCC provided me, which has helped in my personal and career growth development. This has been life changing for me and my family!

—

Maimuna Bah

Our Services & Programs

Strategic Mentorship

The Mentorship Hub pairs young women from underserved communities with women who are leaders in their professional fields. Mentors provide mentees with academic and career planning sessions, personal development/coaching sessions, project-based CV and cover letter writing lessons, physical resources for career development, and access to high-level networks and recommendations for professional growth— for a period of 2 years.

Mu Studio + The Sister Honey Pot

The word ‘mu’ from the Mende language means ‘our’ in English— and encompasses the collaborative ethos of TWCC.

Mu Studio is TWCC's digital merchant. Set to launch in 2026, Mu Studio will serve as an online retailer for TWCC's entrepreneurial mentees to market and sell products from their start-ups.

Partial profit from Mu Studio will be invested into The Sister Honey Pot— a hardship and emergency fund for all mentees.

Creative Resource Center + Safe Space

Scheduled to open in October 2025, the RCSS will be TWCC's head office, housing an accessible resource centre and a safe space for women across Sierra Leone.

RCSS will offer 30-minute academic or career counselling accompanied by informational resources, digital resources, and wellness and mental health activities and events— free of charge.

The RCSS will also host a kiosk of free and unlimited menstrual products, a feminist library, and a meditation space.