Sunlight Nigeria has disclosed plans to empower 500,000 women entrepreneurs in Africa by 2025.

The Brand Manager, Pelumi Kolade revealed this yesterday during a Masterclass session, themed “Positioning Fashion Business for Success” organised for Creatives in the fashion space, at the Lagos Fashion Week, held at the Federal Palace Hotel, Lagos
According to Kolade, “the brand aims at empowering 500,000 women in Africa by 2025. And in Nigeria, we are committing to empowering 200,000 entrepreneurial women by 2025. This is one of the platforms to empower fashion entrepreneurs. From next year we will extend the empowerment of women entrepreneurs into other platforms, like catering, and carpentry businesses.”

Explaining further, Kolade noted that Sunlight’s partnership with the Lagos Fashion Week is in line with the purpose of the brand, which is to empower enterprising women in their pursuit to contribute more to society. He said “Women are generally stereotyped in society as just being homemakers and at Sunlight, we believe that women are more than just homemakers. We are using fashion as the platform to empower fashion entrepreneurs and make their businesses more successful.”

In her presentation titled, “How To Run A Business In A Difficult Environment” Sola Babatunde, Creative Director of One stop celebration limited, and Founder of OSC College, urged participants to understand the fashion industry, and also understand the value chain of fashion.
“This will help a prospective fashion entrepreneur know where they fit in.” She said.
“Also, don’t be a Jack of all trades, master of all. Specialise, pick a particular area and be consistent at it. Learn the necessary skills in that niche, so that your staff won’t take you for granted or abandon you.
“Record your finances, pay yourself a salary no matter how small, and don’t deep your hands into your business capital.” She added.
Meanwhile, in her presentation titled, “Monetising Your Creativity,” Claire Idera, fashion educator, Artist, and influencer, encouraged women to make a decision to become a better version of themselves, work on their weaknesses and turn them into strengths.

Other notable industry experts who had inspiring presentations at the event were Tosin Olaseinde, founder of Ladda Money Africa, and Oyeyemi Adeoye, a spoken word poetry artist.

The highlight of the event was the interactive session which allowed budding and established creatives to ask questions and also, share their experiences in the fashion space.