IT started with a 25L wax burner, a dream and three best friends in the kitchen of a Kardinya home.

Their goal: to empower girls and women around the world.

Their idea: To create and sell candles and use 100 per cent of the profits to fund education for girls living in poverty stricken countries.

Fast-forward three years and their dream has grown into a successful not-for-profit business which helps support 425 African girls’ schooling through One Girl – a Melbourne based charity on a mission to educate one million girls across Africa.

They’re the Empowering Chicks – three Perth mums, career professionals and candle lovers. And they are helping to change the world one deliciously scented candle at a time.

Founder Louise Garland said when she read about the disparity in Uganda and Sierra Leone – some of the worst places on earth to be born a girl – it struck a chord.

According to One Girl a girl born in Sierra Leone is more likely to be forced into marriage or to be sexually assaulted as a child than she is to go to high school.

UNICEF statistics highlight that less than 25 per cent of girls in Uganda finish primary school.

In Sierra Leone, five in six girls never get the opportunity to go to high school. In Uganda it’s nine in 10.

Ms Garland said she “wanted to do something to change it”.

“I raised my son as a single mum – I was empowered, I had a first world education and a great support system around me,” she told PerthNow.

“I was able to go out and earn enough money to support myself and my son and when I heard about the situation with these girls not being able to get an education, their plight really rang to my core.

“We are so incredibly fortunate, our opportunities as women in a first world country are endless.

So she called her besties over, opened a bottle of vino and began brainstorming.

“I got together with some of my closest friends and floated the dream with them and they were on board straight away,” Ms Garland said.

“They were just as passionate as I was about making a difference.”

And so Empowering Chicks was born and the hard work and YouTube candle making tutorials began.

“We had to look for something we could generate an income from so we thought: ‘what do other girls like to buy?’ and candles seemed to be something that we all felt were special,” Ms Garland said.

“So we set about manufacturing candles with a with a 25L wax burner.

“We literally handmade and hand poured every candle ourselves at the beginning on my kitchen bench.

“We had candle boxes piled to the ceiling … my partner said everything he ate tasted like fragrances.”

In the first year their candle making operation outgrew the kitchen and then the garage and now they’ve moved to a warehouse, where thousands of candles are made and sold online, through stockists and at events around Australia.

The soy candles are triple scented and smell good enough to eat – and with flavours like creamy Belgium chocolate lava cake and poolside mango nectar bellini, it is hard to resist lighting them.

Every candle has a unique quote on the front designed to inspire and empower women of all walks of life.

“The candles not only spread the message about the girls in Africa, they raise money for the girls at the same time – it’s a two pronged approach,” Ms Garland said.

“It warms your heart when you sell out, people are really resonating with the cause and want to align themselves with it, so we are overwhelmed with the support.”

It costs $300 per year to send a girl to school, which includes her tuition fees, stationery, uniform and sanitary items.

So every 10 small candles sold by Empowering Chicks ensures a girl can continue her schooling.

Fellow founder Priscilla Hogan – a coffee specialist by day – said they originally thought it would just be a weekend activity but it had grown into so much more.

“It’s all about inspiring people,” she said.

“I have a young son at home and it is all about the world that I want him to live in. If I want him to have a better world I have to create that for him. It’s all about leading by example.”

It’s easy to become an Empowering Chick, said fellow founder Kate Hogan.

“We always say when you purchase a candle you are then an Empowering Chick because you have then empowered somebody else,” she said.

“It’s an amazing feeling to be part of something that’s bigger than just yourself and to know that you can make a difference.

“When we get the updates from One Girl it is an incredibly wonderful feeling, because when you educate a girl you empower the world.”

Ms Hogan said people always asked how they resonated with issues so far away.

Her answer was simple.

“You resonate just by being a woman,” Ms Hogan said.

“Or just by being a human being.”