US, Ascend Studio empower women migrants with $4,500
US, Ascend Studio empower women migrants with $4,500
The United States of America Consulate in Nigeria has partnered with Ascend Studio Foundations to empower returnee female migrants who participated in the Academy for Women Entrepreneurs programme with $4500.
Speaking during the graduation ceremony in Lekki, Lagos on Monday, the Head of Ascend Studio Foundation, Dr Inya Lawal, said the programme was necessary because a lot of returnees came back worse than how they were before leaving.
Lawal said over the last few weeks, the participants had received university-level business management training with mentoring from established women entrepreneurs.
She added that the returnees needed more business training to scale properly.
She said, “Many people would have been owing money before they left and they are back and they have lost all their monies and their families. So we must help them not just financially because a lot of help that is available to them is just giving them money.
“But they need business training, they need therapy and well and they also need the network so that they can scale properly and have something sustainable something economically sustainable for them to move around in the society.”
Lawal stated that the program would also help re-integrate the returnees into the society.
According to her, “It is a sort of reintegration process for them and we followed through the process it is very important for them. For this particular set that is for the returned migrants only, we had about 150 applicants and we chose 30. And from there they had an initial competition virtually and we selected 20 to come for the in-person competition.
“They have been here for two days now on how to pitch and make their businesses better, how to access different kinds of funding whether loan and all that.”
Lawal added, “The criteria are that you must be a Nigerian and you must be a returnee, you must be a woman between the ages of 18 years and 30. You need to know how to use the computer we also trained some that do not know how to use a computer how to do that.”
The Public Affairs Officer to the US Consulate in Nigeria, Julie Mckay, said the programme was aimed at ensuring the growth of women globally.
She said, “This is the category for women entrepreneurs and it is a programme that we do all around the world to ensure that women start and grow businesses. Because we know that when you empower a woman economically, they give back to their families and their families grow the communities as well as the country economically.
We have three cohorts for the category of female entrepreneurs which we call, ‘AWE’ because we believe they are awesome. We have one for Abuja, Lagos, and this special cohort.”
