Christelle Kwizera
Christelle Kwizera, 26, is a Rwandan social entrepreneur. She founded Water Access Rwanda in 2014 to address water scarcity and youth unemployment in Rwanda one year before she graduated magna cum laude in Mechanical Engineering.
Under her leadership, Water Access Rwanda is recognized for being innovative in the water sector where it employs 56 young Rwandans, and distributes safe water to 57,612 people daily through its 159 water points. It was the first from Rwanda to win the Africa Entrepreneurship Award, the EDF pulseAfrica Award, WeEmpower SDG challenge, INCO women Entrepreneur of the year. It is also recognized as a Youth SDG innovator by UNSDSN and was more recently dotted with the Jack Ma Africa Business Heroes Award and funded as a transformer through IsDB’s Transform Fund.
Christelle is a Resolution fellow, a Sierra Club GPEP fellow and a MILEAD fellow; all awarded on account of her leadership in addressing social issues, particularly those tied with environmental justice and Youth issues. Christelle is a recurring mentor, speaker and motivator for other youth and women, using her journey and experience to inspire them on their own entrepreneurship journey. She deeply holds the belief that we gain more skills by using those we have.