Bringing social entrepreneurs to global network for greater impact

Ashoka, an international fellowship with a wide network of social entrepreneurs, is putting new set of social business owners on the global landscape for greater impact. Recently, in Lagos, Ashoka Anglophone West Africa did the induction of three entrepreneurs in the technology, education and agriculture sectors.

Julie Wiscombe of Ashoka International said at this induction, “I work in the Ashoka office in Washington DC, and I am in Nigeria for the first time for the induction of new members, to understand the needs that social entrepreneurs have, so we can better support them and their work and connect them to the global network of about 3,500 social entrepreneurs.”

Josephine Nzerem, director, Ashoka Anglophone West Africa, said “our vision is to make everyone a change maker so they can know how to position their work to make more impact in the sectors they work, and to fit into the global framework. We want to broaden their minds, let them understand that they belong to a global network, so they can leverage on this network to scale their ideas, collaborate with other fellows in other parts of the world, solving the problems they have identified.”

The new Ashoka inductees had this to say. Oreoluwa Shomolu-Lesi, founder/director, Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre, explaining the business, said “I started in 2008, we work with women and girls to teach them how they can use technology in their work. We focus on females because we realised there is actually a gap in technology use between men and women. So, we educate these women and girls on information technology, to show them how easy it is to use. We also do career talks. For sustainability, we try to raise funding from sponsors because not everyone can afford the training but those that can pay.” On how Ashoka would impact on her social business, she said, ”I would be able to grow the business.”

Another Ashoka inductee, Esther Eshiet, founder, PM Mentoring Project, said: “We ensure that young people are prepared for work life and organise career development programmes. We ensure that undergraduates can plan for life after graduation, either from secondary to university or university to work life. We provide them the requisite skills through our different programmes.”

According to her, with the Ashoka support, her organisation will be able to transform the educational and career development landscape in the country. On sustainability, she said: “A lot of things we do is through sponsorship from corporate organisations, sometimes they bring their products as support. We also raise money internally to support the project.”

Kelechi Okezie, executive director, Neighbour Development Foundation, the third inductee, said: “We started in 2005, but went full blast in 2009. We promote consciousness about the environment and try to create awareness between the people and environment. We also provide service delivery in areas that have been degraded. We started in Ebonyi State and we are scaling up. We get sponsorships mainly from international donor organisations. The Ashoka fellowship is an impetus to engage more communities to create awareness and create other avenues for them to sustain themselves, rather than degrading the environment.”

OLUYINKA ALAWODE