Category: Life – The Midweek Magazine

Title: Stories of Impact: Real Women, Real Lives, Really Impact

Author: Grooming Centre

Reviewer: Dr. Obiageli Ekwesileze

Publisher: Groom Centre
Pagination: 129

This book is broken into five chapters; after a preface that was written with a very simple statement. Many of our members testified that the loans they receive from the Centre are a lifeline used to scale their businesses, increase their income, and improve their personal lives. This preface that was written by the founder of the Grooming Centre, Dr. Godwin Nwabunka is a statement that summarises what we normally call outcomes in the development agenda.

From the preface, the book moves on to the first chapter, and in the first chapter of the book, you open up to the picture of the very amazing Mrs. Alice Ogbonna. She speaks of the Grooming Centre in a way that represents often more than 60 per cent of women who are supported in micro activities when she said, “Grooming Centres loans are good and profitable. I use my profits to finish raising some of my children. They all went to secondary school and are now running their individual businesses”.

Mrs Ogbonna is an exemplification of what we know about women. Women have been found to spend more than 70 per cent – 80 per cent of their income on educating their children, providing access to health for family, and showing that the household income supports everyone’s growth.

Women have often been found to spend more than 50% of their income on other people besides anything that matters to them in the big journey.

So to that extent, when you read the story of Mrs. Ogbonna and you read this personating story of a woman farmer whose supply of ugwu, waterleaf, nsaowu and garden eggs to traders has enabled her to build not just people who now have foundational literacy and numeracy skills, which are established in development as the necessary foundation that can predict whether an individual would make it in life, then you begin to understand how powerful the vision of the Grooming Centre is.

For every one Mrs Ogbonna, there are at least 500,000 others that seek to find this kind of support annually. To that extent, therefore, Mrs. Ogbonna represents a very good model for what governments must learn in the kind of work that Centres like the Grooming Centre do for development. The SDGs can only be achieved when we recognise the fact that by enabling her children to have access to education, to quality education of the kind that has subject them to be ready to become entrepreneurs also.

What Mrs. Ogbonna and people like her that have been beneficiaries of the resources from the Grooming Centre show us is that development is not too mysterious to be tackled.

Let us applaud the likes of Mrs. Ogbonna that may be sitting in that hall with you. as I moved on and I saw many of the women – many of the women that followed Mrs. Ogbonna in the first chapter of the book, then I saw Mrs. Olaitan Okubena, who said that she was introduced to the Grooming Centre by a neighbour 15 years ago, and she had some movement issues in the family and in the process, she had to close down a particular business, and when it was time for her to reopen a business, she got introduced again to the Grooming Centre.

In the story of Mrs. Okubena about the Grooming Centre, one immediately learns about sustainability. Sustainability is an important factor in businesses run by women. Evidence shows that most businesses run by women, do not survive beyond year three. And a major part of the reasons that the businesses of women fail, is the problem that the Grooming Centre is solving.

In Mrs. Okubena’s statement of having first heard of the Grooming Centre 15 years ago, and later reconnected into the resources of the Grooming Centre’s and she is thriving tells us something also about the sustainability of the Grooming Centre itself. The Grooming Centre, by its successful business label, has refused to die like other fly-by-night organisations that we have seen in the business of access to microfinance. You may want to clap for the team of people that have run the organisation known as the Grooming Centre, because it will take us too long to complete this review if I went about it in the way that I desired to, what I have done is quickly move to the next chapter of the book; Chapter Two, which talks about changing lives sustainably, as though it did not even see that in the previous chapter, lives were already sustainably changed. Would you say that the lives of all these women, Mrs. John, the woman who so loved selling clothes, that the opportunity to get her loan quickly made her so successful with just N40,000 Mrs. John can be put in this book as one who has been doing business now for 10 years and has two shops.

In chapter two, the Grooming Centre says that its goal is to use its products and services to change the lives of members sustainably, and we have already spoken to that. However, one thing that is very important for us to know is that sustainability is a function of intelligence. That’s what you see in chapter two of this book. Starting with Mrs. Ifeoma Nwaeje, you read through the story of Mrs. Ifeoma Nwaeje who has not only become successful but became successful because of her mother, Mrs. Ogbonna in the earlier chapter, then you understand intergenerational equity.

Mrs Ogbonna said: “I will not leave it with I alone, I must make sure that my daughter and everyone connected to me would get the opportunity of success.” And you know in development, what we have found is that the moment a woman is given access to knowledge, you can be guaranteed that the community will become knowledgeable. That is powerful. It is a powerful thing because development is a function of the quick spread of knowledge. By ensuring that women like Mrs. Ogbonna understand the power of knowledge and how to transfer it from themselves to their daughters, they have fulfilled one of the things that we have seen, which is that the more women are educated in a society, the faster the economic growth of that society. The Grooming Centre, well done on being an important mover of the objective that we have in education.

Then I saw Mrs. Maria Ojor, who is a provision store and bar owner in Delta State. Mrs. Ojor said: “I was born in Ghana, and I lived there until I moved to Nigeria.” She said: “My father sold rice and beans and my mum sold provisions. They were business people. I started this provision store with N20,000. I started with a loan of N40,000. Now I have risen higher.”

One of the things we have found when we have looked at issues of financial inclusion is that for some reason, the financial acumen of women is out of this world. You know, a woman can sell cold to Newcastle. We normally use that as a saying because Newcastle is in the land of cold. So, if you can sell cold to them, then there is something about you that is out of this world. That is the story of why a woman would start a business with a loan of N40,000 and stand on the pages of such an impressive book of pictures- a book of stories of impact, looking like a billionaire. That is what runs through the tread of the kind of confidence that small businesses and access to finance through the Grooming Centre has achieved in the lives of hundreds of 1000s of women.

I am impressed by the work that the team at the Grooming Centre has done for Chinasa Okwudifele; the work that they have done for Adetola Ariyo, the fashion designer in Ipaja. When you look at the pictures of these women in Chapter Two, you’ll see women who could be business entrepreneurs in any capital city of the world. There is something that productivity does to women; it empowers them to a place of absolute confidence and for the women on the pages of this book, confidence more than any other thing is a unifying factor.

In Chapter Three of the book, the authors of the book introduced us to a woman that I loved reading her story, Teni Abdullahi, the millet seller in Lokoja, Kogi State. Her story reminded me very much of the story of my mother.

When I read “I lost my husband about three years ago, but this business has helped me send my children to school, two of them are in federal universities”, Teni Abdullahi. I said, wow, I wish my mother were here to read Teni’s story. I am glad that I can read it on her behalf. I just want to celebrate the greatness that took Teni Abdullahi from N30,000 to N50,000 to N70,000 to N150,000 and a place today where Teni Abdullahi can take even much more and expand the scope of her business.

I go to chapter four quickly, and then I round up with a few sentences on chapter five.

In chapter four, I look at the story of – I did all my markets so that I will be remembering the faces of these women as I do the speech. Yes, this is the story of Mrs. Akponna – the woman trader in Woji, Port Harcourt. She said, “Nigerian women are ready to work, but many of them struggle from lack of support. I don’t think Nigeria respect women. I’ve seen women crying because the government demolished their shops just like that. I wish the government would either give them notice or look into these women into why these women have to sell on the roadside in the first place.”

I loved her story because not only are these women an important segment of the society for Grooming Centre, but I think that even more, Grooming Centre has a whole community of women, that it now must provide policy knowledge and political literacy to a person like Mrs. Akponna, has used her voice to demand accountability.

Final chapter: the CSR for the greater good. Well, what better CSR can a corporation do, than to understand the business model that has worked at the Grooming Centre? What I see is in reading the pages of the women in this book from Chapter One to Chapter Five of it, I say to you, that the Grooming Centre is one of the solutions for any organization that seeks to do CSR in the right kind of way. Not CSR that offers fish for people to eat, but the CSR that gives people the access to how to become the cultivators of fish.

I end on the note that this book brings to the fore, a very important piece of information that we have concerning the issues in development and it is this; it is that for all societies globally, what we found is that 70% of businesses run by women, do not have access to finance and that this major failure to finance businesses that are run by women, cause the world economic growth of at least 2% annually. This can change.

 

 

Eighteen young Nigerian artists from across the country left Lagos last Wednesday en route Dakar, Senegal to participate in this year’s Dak’Art Biennale, holding in St Louis, Dakar.

According to a statement by Art Director LIMCAF, Dr. Ayo Adewunmi who accompanied the prize winners, the  18 young artists including three female artists, are winners of the 2018, 2019 and 2021 top six prizes in the annual Life In My City Art Festival (LIMCAF) competition for young Nigerian artists.

LIMCAF, a pan-Nigeria youth empowerment art competition now in its 15th year, is currently the biggest and longest running contemporary art event in Nigeria which draws in an average of 500 entries from young artists every year.

The Dakar Art Biennale is one of several rewards in cash and career enhancing opportunities on offer yearly. It is a special sponsorship, all expenses paid by Emeritus Prof. El Anatsui, one of Africa’s renowned artists, who is also one of LIMCAF’s two patrons. The other patron is Obi of Onitsha Igwe Nnaemeka Achebe,  while the Board of Trustees is chaired by Elder K. U. Kalu, former chairman of Union Bank.

While in Senegal they will participate in a joint exhibition with selected older artist members of the Pan African Circle of Artists (PACA), in one the ‘Off’ exhibitions of the Biennale.

Before their departure, the artists were guests to a send-forth private dinner hosted by the Chairman LIMCAF, Elder K. U. Kalu at his Independence Layout residence, attended by board members and members of the Organising Committee.

Elder Kalu urged young men and women to show their gratitude by exemplary conduct, open minded learning and full participation while in Senegal as ambassadors of LIMCAF and our country Nigeria. He said they were proud beneficiaries of a policy of reward for merit regardless of origin or gender.

He noted that it was a thing of joy and pride for all who have assiduously invested their time and energy to keep LIMCAF going over the past 15 years, to be associated with the heights they have so far attained and hoped that LIMCAF and its sponsors will continue to invest in the career and economic empowerment of young people from all over the country for many more years to come.  LIMCAF 18′ are due back in Nigeria on Friday.

Determined to have effective copyright law and a national book policy that will set parameters for operators in the book value chain, stakeholders in the industry have deliberated on how to change the narrative of the book ecosystem for good. The gathering was at this year’s 21st Nigeria International Book Fair held in Lagos last week, Assistant Editor (Arts) OZOLUA UHAKHEME reports.

There are strong indications that stiffer and more deterrent penalties await any person that breaches the provisions contained in the new copyright bill being harmonised at the National Assembly. As soon as the bill is passed into law by Mr. President, it won’t be business as usual for pirates.

According to Director-General, Nigeria Copyright Commission, Dr. John Asein, there is increase in penalties and providing lower threshold (unlike the present provisions that provide upper limits of fines) thereby giving the judge in all cases the option of giving the highest possible fine is in the Bill.

This increase, he said, was recommended by the Federal Executive Council in response to the rate of piracy which it acknowledged as deserving stiffer and more deterrent penalties.

Asein, who was the keynote speaker at the just-concluded book fair in Lagos, described copyright law as the most proximate legal framework for the sustainable regulation and promotion of a viable book sector. He stated that the rise of book and publishing industry in Nigeria also brought about the need for legal regulation of the sector.

He recalled that the Nigerian Copyright Commission in 2012 initiated a copyright reform process to review the Copyright Act in line with emerging trends and to address the impact of new technologies and bring the law in line with global best practices and treaty obligations.

“Significant progress has been made in the reform project. A new Copyright Bill was passed by the Senate on April 6, 2022 and only yesterday, May 11, 2022, the same Bill went through its first reading at the House of Representatives where it had been transmitted for concurrence. This is, therefore, a good time to take stock and critically reassess our copyright ecosystem with a view to redefining duties and responsibilities for the active players which would include the producers, the consumers and the decomposers.

“We should also proffer strategies for functional interplay between the regulatory, administrative and business components in the industry to attain balance in an otherwise fragile but highly interdependent arrangement. Unless each of the links that make up the major components is strengthened, the entire value chain will eventually give in to the external pressure imposed by the well-known threats to this ecosystem. As the saying goes, any chain is only as strong as its weakest link,” he added.

He, however, observed that the nation’s copyright legislation was considered inadequate to curb the rising menace of piracy and other copyright abuses. Other shortfalls identified in the copyright system, according to him, included poor management of rights; non-compliance with obligations under the relevant treaties; non-deterrent sanctions for copyright infringement; inadequate provisions to deal with new issues arising from the Internet; low level of awareness among key stakeholders.

“The Commission therefore sought to energise the copyright system ‘to considerably improve the living prospects for Nigeria’s authors and creators, while facilitating further growth of the country’s core copyright industries and stimulating innovation and investment in new sectors.’ This was the basis of the new agenda, starting with a new Copyright Bill which has now in Clause 1 set out the following cardinal objectives:

• protect the rights of authors to ensure just rewards and recognition for their intellectual efforts;
• provide appropriate limitations and exceptions to guarantee access to creative works;
• facilitate Nigeria’s compliance with obligations arising from relevant international copyright treaties and conventions; and
• enhance the capacity of the Nigerian Copyright Commission for effective regulation, administration, and enforcement of the provisions of this Act,” he added.

“Dr. Asein pledged to support the development of a National Book Policy, promote respect for copyright, strategic use of the copyright system to grow the book industry, regulate the production, stocking and warehousing and sale of books, work with critical stakeholders to introduce appropriate anti-piracy devices. He also said the commission will increase its collaboration with other enforcement agencies to sustain its antipiracy campaign, and activate all relevant provisions of the Copyright Act that would ensure balance in the use of the copyright system, including provisions dealing with compulsory licensing, exceptions, production of books for the blind and visually impaired.”

To him, books and education play critical roles in the emancipation of man from ignorance and darkness, noting that since, ‘books help to enlighten, influence, socialise and empower the individual, equipping him or her to become a positive influence on the environment, there is also a link between the book and the total development of man and society. Therefore, if we accept that education is the bedrock of an enlightened society, then it stands to reason that the book – in whatever form – is a major factor in national development.’