From Uganda To Australia; How Education Changed A Life & Why It Matters With Unice Wani

When Unice Wani talks about empowerment, she doesn’t sound like someone parroting a slogan. She sounds like someone who has had to fight for it. “What people get wrong about empowerment,” she tells Refinery29 Australia, “is thinking it’s just taking someone else’s ideas and going with them. To me, it’s having the ability and confidence to go ahead and have your own freedom of speech, sticking up for what you feel is right, and taking action in your way, not someone else’s.”

That insistence on speaking in her own way runs through everything Wani does, from her work as a model and content creator to her role as one of the ambassadors for World Vision’s 1,000 Voices for 1,000 Girls campaign. Now in its seventh year, the initiative is rallying Australians to sponsor 1,000 of the world’s most vulnerable girls by International Day of the Girl Child on 11 October. The stakes couldn’t be higher: nearly one in three women and girls globally experience violence in their lifetime, and every three seconds a girl is forced into child marriage. For Wani, those aren’t just big numbers; they’re realities that mirror the stories she grew up with.

Wani has built a following of millions. But visibility alone was never enough. Growing up in Uganda before moving to Australia at five, she saw up close what a lack of opportunities can mean. “A lot of these girls go through violence, child marriage, and they hardly get any education,” she says. For her, migration wasn’t just about a new country, it was about a new reality. Staying in school, being given tools and support, having choices: all of it felt like a gift she now refuses to take for granted.

She knows her life could have looked very different. Globally, 122 million girls are still out of school, many of them in conflict or low-income countries. For those girls, early marriage isn’t a choice but an inevitability. Wani doesn’t take lightly the fact that her education and career are possibilities denied to so many others. That awareness drives her activism, fuelled by a desire to use her visibility to amplify voices that remain unheard.

This year’s campaign also brings something new: men joining the fight alongside women. For Wani, that shift matters. “I feel like it genuinely is the hardest part, because now and again, we are trying to make women leaders, but in everyone else’s eyes, men are the leaders,” she says. She pauses, weighing her words carefully. “As leaders, they set a good example for the younger generation. So if they speak up, we break those barriers and help women stay safe.”

It’s a sentiment echoed across the campaign. Men like radio host Woody Whitelaw have spoken about fatherhood as a driving force behind their advocacy, while athletes like Alex de Minaur are using their platforms to highlight gendered violence. For Wani, seeing men step into the conversation doesn’t diminish women’s leadership; it strengthens the collective.

That belief — that change has to be collective — runs through her perspective on culture more broadly. In fashion and media, she’s seen how easily diversity gets reduced to a box tick. “Diversity is really important. But it doesn’t just come from taking us and putting us in front of the screens and being like, ‘Yeah, this is our diversity girl or boy,’” she says. What matters, she explains, is how people are treated behind the camera: whether hairstylists know how to work with textured hair, whether makeup artists have shades that actually match darker skin, whether models of colour are given the same respect and confidence as their peers. “That’s when you know you’re being backed properly, not just put on show,” she says.

That distinction, between visibility and authentic empowerment, is something she wants industries to reckon with. It’s easy to showcase faces of colour for a campaign; it’s harder to change systems so those people are supported, respected, and allowed to thrive. For Wani, real advocacy requires the latter.

Wani doesn’t shy away from naming what fuels her: rage. But it’s never rage without direction. “What’s more powerful to me in terms of rage and hope is both,” she says. “Rage encourages speaking out. And when people speak out, it allows us to take action. Actions give us hope.” She laughs softly, almost surprised by how easily she puts it into words. But it’s this balance, fury at injustice paired with stubborn optimism, that defines her activism.

Hope, for Wani, isn’t passive. It’s not waiting for systems to change. It’s taking concrete steps. She’s quick to point out that sharing a post on social media has its place — after all, awareness matters — but it’s not where things should end. “Sharing a post is important, you’re getting the word out there,” she says. "But you can also sponsor a girl."

It’s an answer that brings the campaign back to its simplest truth: change isn’t abstract, it’s practical. Sponsorship means a girl stays in school. Sponsorship means she has choices. Sponsorship means she can grow up safe.

For Wani, lending her voice to 1,000 Voices for 1,000 Girls isn’t about adding celebrity gloss. It’s about authenticity, standing with girls whose lives could have been her own. She knows what it feels like to be silenced, and she knows the freedom of being heard. Her role in the campaign is both personal and political: a reminder that empowerment is messy, complicated, and deeply necessary.

“Girls are strong, capable and full of untapped potential,” she repeats, as if willing it into existence. With her voice — and the millions who follow her — there’s hope that more Australians will not only listen, but act.