By Henry Uche
TEDxLagos and Lift Above Poverty Organisation (LAPO) over the weekend brought together 100 women entrepreneurs in tech and creative sectors, and some established women in the same industries at LAPO corporate headquarters in Lagos, for exchange of ideas, aimed to boost their businesses.
The organiser of TEDxLagos, Mercy Akamo, said the essence of the mental empowerment session was to celebrate enterprising women and inspire others to strive for the top as gender is no longer a barrier to women to achieve their goals.
“First, as a woman, you are a human being, you have no barrier. Through this discourse, we want to raise more change makers, innovators, reformers, creators, and trailblazers through a network of giant women in different sectors who would support the upcoming ones both in access to finance and otherwise. Knowledge about how to overcome challenges and navigate through the storms and thorns in the business path is key, and with what we have, we believe our women would appreciate connecting with top leaders in their respective line of business,” she said.
With the theme ‘Inspiring Inclusion’ the director of marketing at LAPO, Mr. Oluremi Akonde, who reiterated the company’s readiness to sustain this year’s theme of international Women’s Day (Invest In Women Accelerate Growth), affirmed that LAPO would continue to support women even as the call for gender equity and financial inclusivity heightens.
“We are pro- women financial institution. We owe nobody apology for that. Because we understand the transformative power of women. About 86 per cent of our customers are women. And so far, we have paid over We’re reaching out to women even in the hinterlands. We’re concerned about people on the button of the pyramid, those excluded in the financial network” he asserted.
As partner in progress, its sister organization, GOXI Micro insurance company Ltd, said it was ready to provide the requisite insurance cover for entrepreneurs in the micro and small medium brackets, adding that cultivating the spirit of resilience, perseverance and doggedness is key to thrive in the overstretched cum troubled economy.
GOXI’s CEO, Mr. Shina Gbadegeshin, its company is passionate to serve the underserved in the country in its pursuit of financial inclusion and equity where everyone irrespective of gender or backgrounds have equal opportunities to flourish and prosper.
“We have paid over half a billion as claims and most of them are women who hold different policies. Today women control over 40 per cent of Small and Medium Enterprises. So we are here to support them. They just need to be aware that there are people and corporates who are interested in their success both in health and their socio- economic well-being” he posited.