WB Many Nigerian women are entrepreneurs
She Leads Africa (SLA) provides women entrepreneurs with mentorship, training and exposure to grow their businesses. Overtime, the team of young women has trained 2,000 women offline and engages with 300,000 women online daily. Afua Osei, a co-founder tells us more.
Having related with women entrepreneurs in Nigeria and Africa through your organisation, what do you see as their major challenge?
Building a business in Africa is challenging regardless of who you are, but for young women their age and gender present a unique set of challenges when it comes to starting a business. While there are many challenges, some depending on where you live, we’ve identified three main ones that we consistently hear from across our communities that pose as roadblocks on entrepreneurial journey.
One, cultural stereotypes and the media have narrowed down who we see and believe can be a successful entrepreneur. Secondly, at She Leads Africa, we have invested significantly in telling a different story about what it means to be a young African woman entrepreneur. Whenever an organisation or investor says they can’t find women for panels or events, we can direct them to the nearly 1,000 young women we’ve profiled on our website in agriculture, technology, health, fashion, food and so much more. There is incredible talent amongst young African women and we strive to provide inspiration and opportunities for them.
Again, running a business is a lonely endeavour and with many business networks dominated by men, young women don’t always feel that they have a place there. This is especially true in the tech industry where “bro” culture has even permeated Africa and tech hubs aren’t inclusive spaces. She Leads Africa provides community for young a women who are looking to connect with likeminded young women and gain support to achieve their dreams. We do this through our online community and active social media pages. There our community can get inspiration, motivation and business advice. Through our professional bootcamps which we’ve held in six different countries, our participants are able to connect and learn with more than 150 other smart and ambitious young women. This is the type of new girls’ network that young African women need in order to succeed.
Also, access to finance is very challenging for young women entrepreneurs as very few banks are able to support SMEs and access to investors is very difficult if you don’t have the right networks.
We don’t believe that access to finance should prohibit any one from achieving their dreams so we teach young women how to build sustainable businesses without external funding and for those looking for investors, we connect them to investors that want to support diverse entrepreneurs. Our website has free guides on business planning, building your online community and developing a strong foundation for your business.
How is SLA helping the young woman entrepreneurs to overcome the challenge?
Young African women are forceful in business so despite the challenges in front of them, they will certainly find a way to power through.
We have a number of products and services to support female professionals and entrepreneurs. Our services are varied and suit every price point.
Our website, SheLeadsAfrica.org, offers a number of informational and inspirational articles and downloadable guides for young women who want to develop their business or career skills.
Our digital training, each week, we host online training sessions to provide access to experts regardless of wherever you are in the world. These digital training sessions are free and cover topics such as ‘Negotiating For What You’re Worth’, ‘Getting Into
We don’t believe that access to finance should prohibit any one from achieving their dreams so we teach young women how to build sustainable businesses without external funding and for those looking for investors, we connect them to investors that want to support diverse entrepreneurs