About Neni
A focused response to a larger question.
Neni means “woman” in Kpelle, the language of one of Liberia's largest ethnic groups and part of the founder's heritage.
Why Neni
What gives a woman the power to shape the course of her own life?
The question is expansive. Neni's intervention is focused.
A woman's choices are shaped by her health, family, culture, community, and the institutions around her. Neni has chosen economic opportunity as a practical place to act.
Education, relevant skills, paid work, income, and advancement do not determine every part of a woman's life. They do, however, expand the choices she can realistically make and sustain. Neni turns its central question into practical work by building pathways from learning to earning and measuring whether those pathways lead to greater economic security.
Neni Institute was created around a practical conviction: when women and girls can access education, relevant skills, paid work, and opportunities to advance, they gain greater power to shape their own lives.
Our mission is to connect women and girls with the education, skills, experience, and employment opportunities they need to build economically secure lives.
Meet the founder
From lived experience to practical pathways
I was a teen mom who was told, in ways both explicit and implied, that my options would be limited for the rest of my life. But my path was not already decided. Education changed what was possible for me. Skills, work, relationships, and access to opportunity changed what was possible, too.
I have spent my career helping organizations build the systems people need to learn, perform, and progress. Now, I am applying that experience to a larger question: how do we build clearer pathways for women and girls to move from education to economic opportunity?
For me, this work is both professional and personal. Neni is shaped by my experiences, but its central question belongs to women everywhere.
Michele Slawon Tokpah, MPA, Founder