Omolere Akinyele

Meet Akinyele

Mrs. Akinyele is the definition of resilience and hardwork. She is a 71 years old widow who has had to take on the burden of caring for her dependents herself. She lives in Idera area of Ajegunle, Ikorodu – Lagos, Nigeria.

She was until recently a staff of Lagos state under the LAWMA parastatal. When she retired, she was able to start a petty trade for herself by selling Soda drinks, water, children’s drinks, bread etc. With an initial infusion of N30,000 she started her trade just one year ago, and was able to start with 4 crates of soda drinks, 2 cartons of children’s drinks, 2 water packs and some bread.

Her Challenges

Here are some of the challenges Mrs. Akinyele experienced at the onset of her trade journey:

  1. 1. Not able to meet the needs of customers especially with regards to complementary products
  2. 2. No financial knowledge to understand the process of managing her finances

However, by virtue of her work with LAWMA, she has been fortunate enough to be initiated into the statutory retirement savings scheme and also take on a Life Insurance policy which she continues to contribute to.

Impact of Seed Grant

With the Seed Grant, Mrs. Akinyele boasts of over 8crates of soda drinks and 6 cartons of children’s drinks, water and a wider range of bread to make available for her customers. All these she was able to achieve while still saving N10,000 into her bank account for the purpose of expanding her business. She hopes to go into snacks sales and looks forward to becoming a retailer for a community member of the S.I.M.B.I program.