Food
The flavours, harvests, and tables that carry memory from one generation to the next.
Culture & creative enterprise
Many threads.
One Africa.
Preserving Africa’s cultural heritage and turning creative expression into opportunity.
Our purpose
Culture as memory, enterprise, and dignity.
Threads of Africa is Elevate Africa’s cultural initiative. Every African country and every culture is a thread: distinct in colour, texture, and story. Woven together, they form one extraordinary tapestry called Africa.
Its mission is to preserve Africa’s cultural heritage, honour those who carry it, and turn it into opportunity for a new generation of creatives. Threads serves designers, filmmakers, musicians, chefs, artisans, and cultural custodians, opening pathways to visibility and livelihoods.
Four creative threads
What we weave
Fashion
The cloth, craft, and design through which Africa expresses her identity.
Film
The lens through which Africa tells her own story, in her own voice.
Music
The rhythm and song that carry Africa’s spirit across the world.
Three shared pillars
Keeping heritage alive. Making it new.
Stories
Documenting the heritage behind the craft, preserving the hands and histories that shaped it.
Community
Connecting creatives to exchange ideas, materials, and techniques.
Competition
Rewarding those who preserve heritage and reimagine it for the future.
Preservation & gathering
A living inheritance
The Loom
Threads’ research and preservation arm researches, records, and revives cultural wealth held in memory and in the hands of custodians.
Threads of Africa Festival
The flagship gathering brings the tapestry together through a marketplace, runway, conversations, and awards.
Programme milestones
Creativity in action
Launched in 2024, Threads began with the Threads of Africa Fashion Prize. The prize drew more than 520 designers from across the continent and reached around one million people. In 2026, Stories of Rebirth followed: a continent-wide fashion film competition reviving endangered African textiles, with US$45,000 in grants and mentorship.
Take the next step
Weave Africa’s future with us.
Discover Threads’ creative initiatives and opportunities on its dedicated website.