OLEJU

If selected as a winner We would use the Elevate Prize funding and support to get digital tablet devices into the hands of 2000 rural women entrepreneurs. We would further develop our digital learning content tailored to the needs of rural entrepreneurs which is preinstalled in the tablet devices for offline usage and also be accessed online. Furthermore, we would get hard copies of our business Development Toolkit, into the hands of 3,000 rural entrepreneurs which consist of a financial recording workbook and a compilation of our other resources. These will accelerate the economic growth of rural enterprises led by women and bridge the existing digital and financial exclusion gaps existing for rural women entrepreneurs.

 We will also leverage the support to expand our reach to places where we otherwise could not reach due to logistics and other limitations. Most importantly we would invest in building sustainable partnerships through which we would be able to create greater impact globally to reach our target of 10,000 women annually with sustainable impact.

Talk about the number of persons who will get access to the digital tablet devices and how it will help expand their business, sales and create opportunities for them and their communities.

My vision is to contribute to achieving a world where women/girls are positioned as change makers and not victims, where all women/ girls have equal access to opportunities to develop themselves in all spheres of society and are recognized as leading change agents making significant contributions to global good.

My purpose is to develop a sustainable solution that allows women to champion their own growth and development, by placing women in the center, and empowering them to scale the solutions to other women in their sphere and communities. My organization is working towards institutionalizing a women center approach to the development of women and girls by engaging with diverse stakeholders and sharing impact results from our previous interventions as proof of the efficacy of this approach.

Our goal for the future is to help government; private and non-profit leaders realize that women are the key to achieving gender equality and economic empowerment and to be a leading organization in achieving sustainable economic development of women and girls

In 2019 over 26.5 million women led MSME’s had no access to formal financial services, and only 42.6% of women in business had access to digital tools compared to 54.5% of men in Nigeria(NBS). Post Covid-19 the situation has worsened further; as many women led MSME’s have closed due to covid related distortions, further expanding the exclusion gaps. As global economies embrace a digital approach to survive; supporting women led enterprises, especially in rural areas to take advantage of the digital drive, will prevent more business closures and reduce social issues such as inequality, marginalization and extreme poverty.

OLEJU developed a Business Development toolkit (BD-KIT) which help rural women access information and manage their business data safely in a covid era.  The BD-KIT contains a mobile device and hardcopy resources, which enable women led MSME’s, create track-able and authentic records to facilitate access to formal financial services, scale and expand trade opportunities.

The preinstalled OLEJU App features simple financial literacy modules and business management solutions in the most widely spoken local language (Pidgin), available online and offline. Our solution is a cost-effective, people-centered and partnership-oriented solution that accelerates economic growth of women, targeting the most remote regions of rural Nigeria.

OLEJU is unique in its approach that places women (target beneficiaries) as key players in developing and implementing the solution. The OLEJU team implements its intervention by identifying local community influencers who have relevant experience or minimal knowledge on business development strategies and we recruit them as community champions. These champions are trained extensively in relevant 21st century skills and strategies for business development and growth using digital tools, to prepare them for their role. Our champions are then equipped with our Business Development Toolkit and which contains a digital tablet and other resources, with which they are supported to train women in their communities and help them access digital solutions and opportunities to bridge the digital learning and financial exclusion gaps for their micro and small enterprises, thereby reducing inequality and extreme poverty. Our approach places the beneficiaries as lead change agents thereby ensuring sustainability and capacity development of rural women beyond our intervention. 

In the last 5 years we have worked closely with over 3,000 women leading micro and small enterprises, and 40% of these women have recorded an increase in revenue/sales margins between 10% - 40% respectively, while 30% have been able to access finances from formal financial institutions amounting to $575,000 collectively, leading to significant growth and scale of rural women led businesses in our host communities.

The OLEJU project is a proven effective solution whose success hinges on our approach that places rural women as key drivers of impact using technological innovations, we work in communities where poverty and hunger are deepest: in the most remote and off grid regions of rural Nigeria, where few development agencies venture.

OLEJU approach is proven effective because we build on existing social capital in marginalized communities by putting rural women in key roles as champions who in turn provide local support to all women in their communities. Therefore, ensuring women in marginalized communities can maximize our resources to access digital and financial opportunities.