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Women should be helped to achieve their goals –Olarenwaju

Elizabeth Olarenwaju, facilitates international trade, supports other women to get international trade connections through her organisation – OWIT, an organisation for women in international trade. She speaks with OLUWATOSIN OMONIYI

 

What really does this organisation do?

 

We help women to get into international trade, meaning that you must be direct or indirect into international trade, which is selling to another country. This brings us to the formal word of exportation which is selling from Nigeria to another country

 

Are there any particular products you export to other countries?

 

Different products including export of services.

 

What kind of services?

Nigerian bankers that are working in Ghana or London with Access Bank, First Bank, union Bank, even has a branch in the UK that export, is of our services. The Ambassador and the people that work in our embassies are export of services. Nigerian doctors that are working all over the world are exporting of our services.

 

And are all of them directly in contact with the organisation?

 

No. The government does not even have a record or data on them and that is part of the way we have been missing money because we only empathise with those who sell abroad. What about those who are rending services that are not paying back to the nation. If

 

this was to come through your organisation, how will you get the data for the government?

 

The Embassy should register every citizen in their country, they should not see themselves or be arrogant to the citizens they are there to serve. The citizens that is their purpose of being in that country, the same way Nigeria civil servants behave here in Nigeria and that is the way the embassy abroad behave same.

 

You said something about statistics and data it mean even as we go to embassies, there is data collection for that?

 

What it should be is that when a new citizen is to travel to a country, there should be a way to receive him, be registered at the embassy, there should be like a web fitted desk to attend to them.

 

Also, there should be something that attracts them to the embassy and anything promised must be done and must be delivered. These should be definition of embassies and their essence. For instance, if there is crisis in Nigeria today, US embassy will summon every America citizen including Nigerians-Americans that they should come together, they will protect them, care for them, send them notes. Nigeria embassy does not do such.

 

How do you go supporting women in Nigeria?

 

We empower, we support business support organisations. Business support organisation is more about business coming together, talking to us, we listen to you, we now look at your book for what you have and what you don’t have.

 

From the assessment, we will be able to tell you the kind of capacity building that is lacking, the kind of technical know-how that is lacking ,that is what we will now recommend for you or if a state have invited us, that is what we will do in that state; like now we will be going to Kogi or Kwara very soon,

 

 

We first go for assessment with the women and see the kind of training that the women will need. That way, we will be able to figure out what to do. Let’s say the Kogi women and Lagos women are not the same, the awareness differs, even their mentality.

 

Then when the assess- ment comes in, the needs now determines how to tailor t h e training to suit the environment and bec a u s e we are packa g – ing them f o r international level, there will be other things that we will need to put in place either with their writing skills, using IT, how to communicate, how to be friendly, how to meet people on the first day and relate with them, we need to put all those things in place and we need to help some of our women that are intimidated to come out of it.

 

You work with team of professionals or you have any category of woman you attend to?

 

No! We attend to different kinds of women. We let it be from beginning to the end because we have grassroots people who will also do more if they are given the opportunity. I have a mother in Ibadan (although, not my mum directly) she’s almost 90 years old, she’s been selling things and she has over 18 houses now a big shopping complex, meaning that if the woman is given an opportunity, she will build factories.

 

How do you go about the grassroots people?

 

We meet them in the market. When I started going to Aleshiloye market, I made it a point of duty to go there every Thursday and go from shop to shop to create awareness. People are just glued to their markets. Nobody wants to leave or know what is happening around them. In January when the idea of medical outreach came, I started to think where to get money for it.

 

I tried different means but I could not get much, I was however able to get some money to buy sewing machines for some people in the church. The medical outreach was still in my heart to reach out to many people. What I did when I got there, every Thursday I talked to them about banking and insurance, savings, their lifestyles and preachi n g

the gospel to them and encouraging them to have a phone so as to read their Bible before bed. When the survival funds came, most of the market traders did not benefit from it as a result of the COVID-19. Every company was expected to pay N30,000 to N50,000 to 10 persons for three months under the federal government for frees, the company needed to input it and submit it to the federal government and they will pay it directly to the person’s account. Those people did not benefit, those in the market, some have more than ten workers. Since they were not aware of it, they did not benefit from it. So, some of us have to take it upon ourselves to do what is right.

 

Do you provide mentorship support for them as well

 

? Yes we do that. We just finished one mentorship program that we did under UK Aides. They gave us about four to five people- to each of us who are mentors. We meet with them, if there is any problem, they talk to us and we teach, encourage them for about four months. So, if I have a mentee in the market, I need to be going there maybe once a week to check up on her and if they have anything to clarify, I will help her with it.

 

Sometime, I followed them to bank sometimes I called the bank to come to the market. I am a voice to those that are voiceless and I think I enjoy doing it more because it gives me Joy helping other people and it gives me satisfaction.

 

From your experience on the job so far, what will you say about women mentoring women and supporting one another?

 

The women supporting women is the level of exposure and understanding of life for that particular woman.

 

The percentage of women helping each other is like 30%. There are women that find it difficult to celebrate other people’s success and some naturally celebrate other people’s success. You can only function by the level of light you have absorbed in your life. The light that makes you see, if you don’t have that light, you will not see beyond where you are sitting. You will be growing in darkness and you will want others to grow in darkness too. S

 

ome people say African Growth and Opportunity Act, (AGOA) is a scam…

 

Because the broadcast in the US does not know about AGOA, they need to go and sensitise there people first before they tell me they want to render services to other parts of the world. Otherwise, how do we harness, how do we make use, how do we implement what we promise?

 

But AGOA is a United States Trade Act enacted 21 years ago?

 

They are the originators, it is their project, it is their product, they need to go and sensitize their people. Because, when we get to the border, it is the American you are going to approach, when you don’t know your product, how will they make use of it, how do you want them to interprete?

 

What is the difference in function between your organisation and AGOA?

 

I can now say let the OWIT international, the American outreach help us speak to AGOA. If they do, they give us express paper. I will say the broker that is going to work on my container coming in from US does not know about it. If custom officer does not know that government has changed the tariff from 40% to 75%, when you get to port, what happens?

 

If customers do not know, they will still charge you that 75%. AGOA is an office; it’s like an SON, like SON that has been created for 20 years, which they will dissolve after. So, it is government policy. What it means is that SON should go and teach Broadcast because they are the ones to carry all our papers around when we want to come to in. So Broadcast should know about AGOA because it is the work of US government to sensitise their own people about their products. Ghana has a bilateral agreement with European Union, (Eu), they do a lot of waiver for them.

 

When Ghana products get to the borderline (EU) they don’t stress them, they don’t ask them for any paper work or documents because the port of origin says Ghana but when the port of origin says Nigeria, they said no, go and get all the documents and you are expected to get up to five or seven different documents and for each document, you have to pay and the timing start to enter demurrage.

 

The waiver they get, we don’t get it so their products end up cheaper. What all my explanations translate to is that, AGOA have not done their homework properly.

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