First Bank Mentors 50 Female Entrepreneurs

First Bank of Nigeria Limited, in partnership with Eloy Business Shower, has taken 50 women through the ELOY Foundation Sustainable Empowerment Programme with 10 of them getting grants of N250,000 each.

The bank said, this is in line with its target of empowering over female entrepreneurs in the country.

FirstBank had recently launched the 2022 Edition of the ‘Eloy Business Shower’, designed and dedicated to encouraging, promoting, and empowering businesses owned by female entrepreneurs across Nigeria.

The ELOY Foundation Business Shower focuses on empowering and challenging thousands of women to be more and do more by providing access to resources, business skills, and tools for them to be able to grow, transform and sustain their businesses, which will, in turn, benefit their families and the community at large.

The aim is to expose female entrepreneurs to important business skills, networking, and the Eloy Foundation Business Toolkit, which is a collection of business survival information, grants, and affordable loans which is being executed through FirstBank’s FirstGem nine per cent Loan Scheme created for female-owned MSMEs and the SMEConnect Initiative.

The 50 graduands were drawn from all geopolitical zones of the country, with small and micro entrepreneurs attending the event in Lagos from Benin, Kano, Ibadan, Port Harcourt and Abuja.

One of the beneficiaries of the grant, Adaora Akojuru of Berra Tomatoes, speaking on the programme, said: “I set out on the programme with three goals of marketing, product development packaging diversification. With the training that I have received and mentorship I have experienced first hand the possibility of growing my businesses and giving it proper structure for impactful and profitable existence.”

For 2023, First Bank, in partnership with ELOY, will also be empowering 1000 women at the ELOY Business shower and another 50 will get in the ELOY Foundation Sustainable Empowerment Programme.

All the female entrepreneurs who go through the programme go onto the ELOY Foundation Network for Entrepreneurs and Business Owners.