The greatest challenge facing women in this part of the world is lack of education -Okocha Nkem

Okocha Nkem Christiana is not moved by the luxuries of life. She is moved by the hardships many low-income women experience as a result of either lack of education or skill. Her passion for alleviating the plight of these women gave birth to Mamamoni.

Mamamoni empowers rural and urban slum women in different communities with free vocational, financial skills and provide finance for them. Their innovated web platform at www.mamamoni.org enables individuals to lend poor women money to grow their businesses.

So far, Okocha has trained over 4000 women in over 11 different communities in Nigeria. She shared her inspiring story with Feminine World recently. Enjoy.

Why are you so passionate about women?

I am passionate about women because of the hardship most low-income women experience as a result of either lack of education, skill, finance and inequalities because of the kind of society we live in.
What does Mamamoni mean and how did you come up with the initiative?

Mamamoni is Mama Money but coined in pidgin to become Mamamoni. I started Mamamoni due to my experience as a young girl with a widowed mother who had no skill and source of income to take care of her 4 children, feeding and going to school was a challenge for the family. I also started my initiative because of the poor women I saw in my community and other communities I visited.

What we do at Mamamoni is to empower poor women in different rural and urban slum communities with free vocational, financial skills and provide finance for them, we also
innovated our web platform www.mamamoni.org to enable individuals lend
poor women money to grow their businesses. I started in June 2013.

What are some of the challenges you face empowering women?
The challenges we face has to do with lack of enough sponsorship to fund our trainings because we get a lot of request to come to different communities. There is also logistics challenge in accessing these communities.

What do you think is the greatest challenge facing women in this part of the world?
The greatest challenge facing women in this part of the world is lack of education. This is because an educated woman will also ensure that her children are educated. She can compete with men for jobs, start and manage her businesses. The list is endless. Women can be empowered to live a fulfilled life by getting educated and also by being impacted with the rights skills and tools.

What lessons should young girls be taught early in life?
Young girls should be given good education and be taught that they can be leaders in any field they choose to work.

How do you fund your NGO?
Mamamoni is a Social Enterprise. We operate a hybrid model. While our trainings are free, we also provide access to finance for our women, which they pay back with a little interest.

What are some of your future plans?

We plan to replicate our model across most of the states in Nigeria, by providing relevant skills and finance for poor women to be diligently engaged thereby breaking the cycle of poverty.

Do you have any last words for women?
Dear woman, God has created your to reign on earth, he has given you all
the potentials you need to create impact in any field you choose. Don’t
let anyone tell you that you cannot achieve your dreams.

You can be anything you set your mind to be. The qualities of leaders we have tomorrow are dependent on the kind of values we as women instill in our children. Women, we can create
the future we want.