February can not pass by without mentioning an African giant. A woman who made her people proud. A woman who despite all she went through, fought back and stood tall.

We do not celebrate her enough.

Paco Rabanne gave her the chance to be on the runway and thus gave her her breakthrough.

Katoucha was born in Guinea to a father who got on the wrong side of President sekou toure of Guinea. He fled to Senegal leaving little katoucha behind. She went on to live with her uncle in Mali till she was twelve, when she rejoined her father and the rest of the family in Dakar. Sadly before she left Mali, she was raped by her relative. Worse still she suffered GM at the tender age of nine.

Joining her family was shortlived as she was shoved into marriage before seventeen. And a baby by seventeen.

Providence brought her to Paris. Thiery Mugler found her. On to Paco Rabanne and the prestigious Yves saint Laurent. She was named ‘the muse of Yves Saint Laurent’.

She modelled from the early eighties to the mid-nineties. She left modelling to be an activist, fighting against FGM in Africa, par