MTN Foundation, EDC, Mastercard Train Female Entrepreneurs

Funmi Ogundare

MTN Foundation has partnered Mastercard and Enterprise Development Centre (EDC), the entrepreneurship centre of the Pan Atlantic University to empower female entrepreneurs through its Y’ellopreneur initiative.

The training which has the objective of contributing to the reduction in women unemployment through investment in entrepreneurship to achieve a sustainable socio-economic development in Nigeria, is targeted at female entrepreneurs and business owners between 18 and 35 years.

Speaking at a media parley to unveil the sixth phase of the ICT and business skills capacity building programme in Lagos , the Executive Secretary of MTN Foundation, Odunayo Sanya, expressed concern that women are confronted by deep-rooted obstacles which may prevent them from achieving their potentials at work and in other aspects of life, adding that their non-empowerment could be a threat to socio-economic development.

She listed some of the challenges facing women entrepreneurs to include; inadequate training, lack of access to capital for expansion and poor family support.

The training, Sanya stated, would be in the area of entrepreneurship skills to enhance the entrepreneurial abilities of the female entrepreneurs who operates different trade sectors.

“The programme is also designed to involve webinar sessions, and marketplace event that will enable the trained female entrepreneurs to showcase their products for sales and business visibility opportunities. The design of the programme also involves business support, advisory and mentorship services for sustainability purposes,” she explained.

In an interview with journalists, a certified master trainer and entrepreneur, Mrs. Fayo Williams, described female entrepreneurs as special breeds of people who are intentional about creating a future for themselves, their children and the society.

“The initiative will open up a vistas of opportunities for hitherto left behind women. They will be trained and have capacity building on how to prepare a growth plan, register their business and come out from the informal to formal sector.

Beyond that there will be network opportunities and other opportunities to access finance,” she said.

The director of EDC, Nneka Okekearu, explained that her organisation has been bridging the gap among female entrepreneurs and equipping them with knowledge to overcome gender biases which they tend to face.

“The private sector has to step in as enablers for opportunities to achieve much,” she stated.