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BBC has released its top 100 inspiring influential women from across 60 different countries between the ages of 15 to 94 based on academia, influence, social activism, politics and arts, and has described these women as "leaders, trailblazers and everyday heroes".
READ MORE: "Your background doesn’t define you" – Bokang Montjane-Tshabalala
And SA's very own, Thando Hopa is among the women who are fighting to make this world a better place.
The 29 year old started out as a prosecutor and after four years of assisting the hands of justice decided to take a sabbatical.
Says Thando in this Standard Bank Top Women article: "After four years I felt it was time to look into interests I had put off. I felt like the only way to do it was to fully commit to the process. So I took a sabbatical. I went through an agonising decision-making process but after weighing everything, I knew it was time to leave. But leaving prosecution did not take away my voice, my purpose or my sense of a meaningful life. So I made the leap."
Thando has made history as the first black South African featured in the prestigious Pirelli Calender, alongside international celebrities such as Naomi Campbell and Lupita Nyong'o, modelled for designers such as Gert Johan Coetzee and has recently been signed to American modeling agency, New York Models.
However, she says that her plans were never to be a model.
She decided to pursue the career it after she realised that this would be an opportunity to represent people with albinism on a greater scale.
"When I was a prosecutor and I was scouted by Gert-Johan Coetzee, I decided I would only do the shoot because I wanted to portray albinism in a positive light because there was a lot of stuff in the media that was continuously negative," she tells CapeTalk.
READ MORE: Sandi Mazibuko puts South African heritage in the spotlight on Paris and Milan runways
The young beauty has also featured on magazine covers such as Marie Claire and GQ.
On her Twitter account she describes herself as someone who is striving for diversity in the media industry as a whole and she is definitely causing ripples as she makes hers and the voices of others heard with all of her achievements thus far.
Who else is on the BBC 100 women of 2018 list?
- Spanish-language author, Isabel Allende
- Vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, Chelsea Clinton
- 'Slumflower' blogger Chidera Eggerue
- Actress, writer, activist and TV personality, Jameela Jamil
- Visit the BBC site for the full list
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