Network trains Tejuosho market women in financial planning
The NECA Network of Entrepreneurial Women (NNEW) has trained about 50 market women in Tejuosho, Lagos, on costing, financial planning and cashless policy.
The project is executed in conjunction with ActionAid Nigeria/Canada under the Women’s Voice and Leadership (WVL) to make market women develop better understanding of how to cost their goods and have a better financial understanding.
The group’s president, Funmilayo Arowogun, said the women have to understand the basic rudiments of financial planning and costing of their goods and services so that they can make more profits, expand their businesses and meet the needs of their families.
“When a woman is empowered, she’s not only empowered for herself, but for her family, society and thereby, Nigeria will be a better place.
“So what we want them to learn is how to identify those areas in their businesses that they are able to work upon so that they can make more profits in their businesses,” she said.
Arowogun lamented that the traders have never practiced on some of the things taught.
“Now they have been told to keep a record of their financial activities, they must learn how to separate themselves from their businesses, they should learn to give themselves salaries. I hope that with this programme, they will become better managers in their businesses,” Arowogun said.
The facilitators, Dr Obiageli Nwobi, Ms Toluwanimi Rosamond and Aisha Ime-James, explained that prioritising costing helps businesses to set prices, reduce and control costs, as well as make better decisions about the direction of the business.
For Ime-James, who lectured on cashless policy, “women should see it as an enabler for business rather than see it as a disadvantage, it’s just about the mindset that if embraced properly, it would help transform businesses and retain customers. We have been doing cashless transactions in a way because we have been doing transfers before today and doing cheques and drafts transactions, so, nothing has changed.”
