Business
More than 20,000 people have passed through the classrooms of the JACCD Design Institute Africa since its establishment nearly 32 years ago.
For more than three decades, the Chief Executive Officer of JACCD Design Institute Africa, Joyce Ababio has been known as one of Ghana’s most celebrated fashion designers.
Her gowns have graced beauty queens, first ladies and distinguished personalities. Her awards fill an impressive résumé. Yet, she believes her greatest achievement isn’t hanging in a wardrobe, it’s walking across Ghana and beyond.
More than 20,000 people have passed through the classrooms of the JACCD Design Institute Africa since its establishment nearly 32 years ago.
During her conversation with Kafui Dey, the veteran designer reflected on the remarkable milestone with quiet humility.
“We’ve been around for almost 32 years,” she said.
When Kafui remarked that the figure represented an enormous impact, Ababio simply agreed.
“That’s a lot of impact. Done a lot.”
Those thousands of students now form an invisible creative network spread across the country and across continents. Unlike many universities that proudly showcase alumni networks, Joyce’s alumni often keep in touch in a far more personal way.
“Some of them tell me every time something is happening in their lives. I get a message: ‘Auntie, I’m doing this… I’m receiving this award.’”
Those messages, she admits, make her “very proud.”
Perhaps the greatest reward for a teacher is witnessing transformation. Joyce recalls one particular student whose mother enrolled her before sending her abroad.
The young woman struggled with the sewing machine.
“Her hands were like this on everything,” Joyce laughed. “I used to think, ‘Oh my God, is she ever going to know how to do this?’”
Today, that same student is among Ghana’s leading fashion designers.
Joyce deliberately withheld her name—not because she wasn’t proud, but because she didn’t want the designer to know what she had once thought.
For Joyce, these moments define education. Students who begin with uneven stitches eventually discover confidence.
“First garment—not too good. Second garment—not too good. Third garment—somewhere decent. Fourth garment is amazing. Suddenly something clicks”, she said
It is that “click” she has spent three decades nurturing.
Behind every successful fashion label, every boutique owner, every costume designer and every entrepreneur who once sat inside her classroom lies another chapter of Joyce Ababio’s quiet legacy.
She may be recognized as an award-winning designer, but perhaps history will remember her as something even greater, a woman who built a creative army, one student at a time.
@PK
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