These women are on a mission to save their world

Social entrepreneurs do not start up businesses with the end goal of smiling to the banks. At the core of their models is the drive to impact a group, gender or category of society with their products and services. Our Leading Women this week are changing the lives of Nigerian women and youths with their products and services and have gained worldwide recognition for their good causes.

ADEPEJU JAIYEOBA – MOTHER’S DELIVERY KITS

With the hope of curbing maternal mortality, she turned a personal tragedy into something positive. Adepeju Jaiyeoba a “young innovator” at the World Innovation Summit for Health is the founder of Brown Button Foundation, a social enterprise which produces delivery kits containing sterile supplies to be used at childbirth in rural and urban communities in Africa. One of Brown Button’s (Mother Delivery Kit) aim is to eradicate maternal and infant deaths in Nigeria, as well as promote women’s sexual and reproductive rights.

Adepeju was motivated by the death of a close friend who died in childbirth in 2011, as well as the death of a sister of another close friend, after which she started training birth attendants in rural communities. After meeting a baby infected with tetanus as a result of a rusty blade being used in delivery, she decided to take action.

Mother Delivery Kits started distributing delivery kits in 2013 and so far they have distributed over 400,000 kits and trained over 8,000 birth attendants to date, who have also gone on to train others in their community.

In 2014, Adepeju was recognised by President Barack Obama in his speech at the Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders Presidential Summit. Skilled in community development advocacy, Adepeju is a Coady Institute Alumna and participated in the 2013 Global Change Leaders programme.

NKEM OKOCHA – MAMAMONI LIMITED

Nkem Okocha discovered there were a lot of idle women in and around her community, with no livelihood or skills to earn one. They had no money to start businesses, and were unable feed and educate their children. With the drive to empower and impact the lives of women from different backgrounds due to her own personal experience and the level of poverty in her community, she started MamaMoni Limited.

Nkem’s passion stems from a personal experience with poverty after the passing of her father. Her mother who had no skill or finance to start and run a business could not cater for and feed her and her siblings.

In 2013 she started empowering women from different backgrounds on a range of vocational skills to help them start their own business and in 2014, she started the financial loans part of her business. The vision of her organization is to empowering women who come from low-income rural and urban slum backgrounds, provide free vocational skills and mobile loans to help them on their way to becoming financially independent.

According to her, a skill is all one needs to start to make life for themselves and with her help, a lot of families in rural communities have hope for a better life as women are able to contribute to their family finances.

The social enterprise recently won her the EbonyLife/WIMBIZ Sisterhood Award Social Enterprise of the Year.

ADENIKE AKINSEMOLU – THE GREEN CAMPUS INITIATIVE

Adenike was surprised when in her class of about 250 students at the Adeyemi College of Education, no one could explain what they understood by “Going Green”. About 98% of them simply had not heard about it before. Passionate about the environment, young people and in the face of vital climate changes with possible dangerous effects on man, she founded The Green Campus Initiative, a social enterprise that teaches and challenges university students across the country to preserve the environment for the future.

In the first 8 months of her green journey, nearly 150 university students from 28 universities have been trained with the goal to have a chapter of the Green Campus Initiative at each of Nigeria’s university campuses. These students are group of passionate young people who are called Green Ministers and Ambassadors.

Adenike Akinsemolu advocates for living green- recycling, conservation of resources and growing and eating organic food. The Green Campus Initiative (GCI) tackles the challenges of climate change and environmental sustainability through innovative academic research, results-based green initiatives, and building a generation of environmentally conscious, socially conscious student leaders.

The programs encourage students to use bicycles and other means of sustainable transportation, conserve energy and water, utilize renewable energy, dispose of their waste properly, become social entrepreneurs through the development of vocational skills, grow and consume organic food, and become eco-conscious citizens.

OREOLUWA SOMOLU LESI – WOMEN’S TECHNOLOGY EMPOWERMENT CENTRE

Oreoluwa Somolu Lesi is Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre, a Nigerian NGO working to empower girls and women socially and economically, using information and communication technologies. Oreoluwa is a 2014 Vital Voices Lead Fellow, 2013 Ashoka Fellow and a recipient of the Anita Borg Change Agent Award for her commitment to issues of women in computing in Nigeria.

The programme was borne out of the fact that women’s use and knowledge of ICTs (to store, share, organise and process information) is lower than men’s, denying them of income-generating opportunities and the chance to network with others.

W.TEC’s programmes comprises of technology literacy training, technology-based projects, mentoring and work placement. W.TEC will also research and publish works examining pivotal issues related to how African women use technology, barriers preventing or limiting technology use, and strategies for more efficient technology use.

W.TEC works in partnership with local and international NGOs, educational and research organisations. W.TEC programmes have been supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology, Fahamu, Laureates College, Omatek Computers, and Rutgers University’s Women in Computer Science Group.