Janice Ashby was born, raised and studied art in the UK. After settling in Cape Town she started The Janice Ashby Design Partnership, an award winning design firm which continued for eighteen years until Janice left for New York. The firm became the pre-eminent design firm at that time in South Africa with offices in Johannesbrg and Cape Town. Branding, Package Design and Corporate Identity were its specialties. JADP won multiple accolades year after year at both at the Loeries in SA and the Clios in the USA. http://packagingmag.co.za/magazine-issues/93-2013/issue-september-2013/545-the-queen-of-the-pack-is-backIn the eighties Ashby was offered an opportunity to join a Saachi & Saachi owned design firm in New York to start up their new Package Design & Branding division. With no end to apartheid in sight at that time she took the position and remained in New York until 2011.During her time in NY Ashby designed and marketed her own line of recycled paper products using handmade papers she had discovered were being produced in Zimbabwe. She branded the line Eco Africa Papercraft and after seeing the conditions of poverty under which the women of Zimbabwe lived, (unemployment being at 90% of the population), she started a job creation initiative to empower women through crafting. Hundreds of women benefited from the income.She founded Eco Africa Social Ventures in New York in 2007, a non profit organisation raising funds for food and support for the Zimbabwean crafting artisans and their families. In 2011 she left New York to return to Cape Town to reunite with her family. After seeing the plight of South Africa's rhinos, she began developing The Rhinos Are Coming!!! - a Public Art Fundraising Initiative which became her passion.