FirstBank partners ELOY Foundation to empower female entrepreneurs

BY ONOME AMUGE

First Bank of Nigeria is partnering with ELOY Foundation, a female empowerment organisation, to create a business shower initiative tagged ”ELOY Foundation Business Shower”, aimed at supporting female entrepreneurs across Nigeria towards building sustainable businesses.

The business shower focuses on key sectors of the economy and is designed to expose female entrepreneurs to essential business skills through training, networking and the ELOY Foundation business toolkit, a compilation of business survival skills nuggets.

In furtherance of the need to support female business owners, the partnership will avail businesses a platform to pitch their ideas to win seed grants and join the ELOY Foundation Sustainable Empowerment Programme 2022. Participants will also be able to access the FirstGem single-digit loan, designed by the premier bank for female-owned or partnered Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) and its SMEConnect initiative, where eligible.

The ELOY Foundation Business Shower will be held in five locations across the country, commencing in Lagos on June 23, 2022. The next sessions will be held in Port Harcourt and Abuja on June 25 and June 30, respectively. Kano will host the female business entrepreneurs on July 2, while the final session in the year will take place in Abia on July 7.

According to the organisers, the ELOY Awards Foundation Business Showers will offer an avenue to sustain women empowerment by providing entrepreneurial training and mentorship from experienced businessmen and women, arming participants with tools and information to help them grow their businesses.

Commenting on the partnership, Folake Ani-Mumuney, group head, marketing & corporate communications, FirstBank, commended ELOY Foundation for its efforts on the Initiative, noting that the continued strengthening and inclusiveness of female-driven business endeavours are essential to the growth of the national economy.

“We are happy to partner with ELOY Foundation on its Business Shower. Together, we will drive the entrepreneurial viability of participants and expose them to business nuggets that will take their business to the next level,” Ani-Mumuney said.

Speaking on FirstBank’s significant role towards the development of female entrepreneurship, she said, “Woven into the fabric of society for over 128 years, FirstBank plays a leading role in supporting women through strategic empowerment, capacity building and mentorship programmes for women in MSME, leveraging its FirstGem and SMEConnect propositions to women across diverse sectors of the economy as well as strategic partnerships with women empowerment organisations like ELOY.”

Tewa Onasanya, founder of the ELOY Awards Foundation, emphasised the importance of sustaining female empowerment by providing guidance towards the business progress of Nigerian female entrepreneurs and giving access to different resources to help them continue to thrive.

“MSMEs are the backbone of any nation and there is a great need to sustain this chain of the economy. It is on this common ground that FirstBank has partnered with the ELOY Team to contribute meaningfully in empowering women to achieve fulfilment in their chosen business endeavours,“ Onasanya said.

Female business owners are encouraged to send in their business pitch video and business plan via https://eloyawards.com/eloy-business-shower-registration/ to qualify for the sustainable empowerment programme, and a chance to win a grant for their business.