UNICEF Ambassador Solange Tuyishime Keita sets Universal Woman Goal: One Million More Girls with Access to Education

Twenty years into her pageant journey, Solange enters Universal Woman with a bigger vision: increasing opportunity for women and girls around the world.

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA, October 2, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Twenty years after first stepping onto a pageant stage, Solange Tuyishime Keita still carries big dreams but today, those dreams reach far beyond a crown.
A mother, humanitarian, founder of Elevate International and longtime UNICEF Canada Ambassador, Solange has spent much of her life using visibility and leadership to advance opportunities for women and children globally.

Now, in this Universal Woman chapter, she is making an even greater commitment: to help build pathways toward education and opportunity for one million more girls.

“People often ask me why I believe in this dream so deeply. The answer is simple: I genuinely believe we can change lives.”

For Solange, entering Universal Woman came with a deeper calling. She saw an opportunity to join a platform that believes in women’s empowerment while demonstrating what becomes possible when visibility is connected to service, opportunity and measurable impact.

That alignment is particularly meaningful within Universal Woman, a global platform led by CEO Carolina Cuartas, known as Carolina London, that places women’s empowerment, leadership and social impact at the centre of its mission. For Solange, the organization’s commitment to advancing women and the belief that access, economic opportunity and greater agency can help women build safer, more independent futures makes this chapter especially purposeful.

“I was particularly inspired by Carolina London’s belief in advancing women’s economic empowerment and creating greater access and independence for women as part of addressing domestic violence. It reminded me that our visions are connected: when women have education, economic power and a voice in their own futures, entire generations can change.”

Her advocacy is deeply personal.

As a young refugee, Solange remembers being a girl with dreams but without access to many of the opportunities that could make those dreams possible. She watched other children attend school while she remained behind.

That experience became a lifelong promise: if she survived, she would use her life to help open doors for others.

Motherhood made that promise even more urgent.

“I think about the world our daughters and the next generation of girls will inherit from us. Every girl deserves the opportunity to learn, to dream and to shape her own future.”

Today, that promise has become measurable action. Through her humanitarian and empowerment work, Solange says she has reached thousands of women and more than 10,000 girls across over 20 countries, helped raise more than $3.6 million for global causes, and supported the delivery of more than 100,000 sanitary pads to help girls remain in school with dignity.

But for her, those numbers represent progress not the destination.

Her vision is larger: a generation in which girls have access to education, women have economic power and influence, and no girl is denied the opportunity to become everything she is capable of becoming.

“Imagine one million more girls with access to education. Imagine what becomes possible for families, communities and generations when girls are given the opportunity to learn and lead.”

For Solange, Universal Woman is another chapter in a much longer story; one rooted in the belief that a platform becomes most powerful when it creates possibilities for someone else.

“That is the future I believe we can build together. And that is the purpose I carry into this Universal Woman journey.”

Robert Kalwarowsky
Elevate International
partnerships@elevateinternational.ca
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