Riding on the LSETF Platform to pay it forward.

When I started www.easyshopeasycook.com 12 years ago, Otto and Oyingbo Markets were the two main markets I frequented for fresh fruits, vegetables and other staples. The women and men in these markets taught me so much about buying and selling fresh produce. They gave me credit for as long as they could accommodate and generally guided me when I needed them. A number of them have been in business for over 25 years.

The bulk of my suppliers now come from the farms and Mile 12 market but almost daily there is something to buy in either of these markets as they have some specialized items unique to them.

I have been looking for a way to give back to them for all they have done and continue to do for my business. I had planned food safety, hygiene and basic business training for them but I was advised that if access to finance is not included in the training the traders will not take me seriously so this program was stalled as I did not have money to give them.

Then Lagos state started the Micro Enterprise loan scheme of between N50,000 to N500,000.00 which did not need collateral. I met with the various leaders of the market associations to discuss it with them and find out their interest. We invited the LSETF (Lagos State Employment Trust Fund) and LIRS (Lagos Internal Revenue Service) representatives to sensitize the associations last week on all that is required to qualify and access the loan. It was a successful meeting. 50 forms were given to the traders; 20 for women and 30 for the men.

Today, I went back to help the women fill their forms and found out about 70 traders (male & female) are interested in the loan so we had to make extra copies of the original form. Each of them want an average of N200,000.00 as working capital and the interest rate is 5% per annum. All those we are starting with are only credible long term members of the associations. I went through their sales book and the average turnover for each of them is about N1.5m employing about 3 people each. Over half of them do not have bank accounts, they save their money with cooperatives/associations, ranging from N2000 - N7000 daily.

I went with 2 of my staff to help the women fill their forms today and I was able to convince them of the business training program. Since I came with money first, they all were excited about a business training program to help them better organize their business. As they are of various tribes, I have to get trainers that will be able to communicate in about 3 Nigerian languages for it to be effective. They have all done so well for themselves but can do with better tools and guidance.

Nigeria has the largest group of female entrepreneurs in the world but most of our women are small/micro business owners, we need to give them the right business training and access to finance to help them grow to medium and large scale.  When I talked to some of these women I learnt so much about their businesses and responsibilities and I can only imagine what more they can do for themselves, family and society if only they had more help tailored to their needs.

I am so happy to have finally found a way to give back to these women and men. So much can be done on this platform. People won't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Once we are able to help them get these loans for their businesses, they will listen to us when we talk about implementing food safety standards, hygiene and basic business training. Then we see where else this takes us.