2019 beneficiaries of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) programme, last week in an exclusive interview spoke on their experiences at the biggest gathering of African entrepreneurs hosted in Abuja, Nigeria, in July this year.
Among other things, the three young entrepreneurs- TuTu Bundu, Semion A.T. Saffa-Turay and Phebean Swill- out of the seven that were selected by TEF, spoke on the networking opportunities they benefited by interacting with entrepreneurs from other countries in Africa, the challenges they faced and future plans.
The remaining selected individuals were unable to attend the programme in which two of them were said to be nowhere to be found, one was on another assignment and the other was unable to foot the bills to attend the programme.
The Foundation, which is a 10-year entrepreneurship programme geared towards empowering African entrepreneurs, in March this year selected a little over three thousand beneficiaries for the 2019 TEF Programme out of over 216,000 entrepreneurs that submitted their applications online.
The Foundation directly funded 1,000 entrepreneurs and an additional 2,050 beneficiaries were supported by its partners. Several reports indicate that the Foundation within the past five years has successfully empowered 7,520 entrepreneurs across Africa with a non-refundable $5,000 (five thousand dollars) of seed capital each, access to mentors, and a 12-week business training programme, directly focused on the needs of African entrepreneurs.
Sierra Leone’s youth population aged 15-35 comprises one third of the population. Approximately 70% of youth in Sierra Leone are underemployed or unemployed and an estimated 800, 000 are actively searching for employment, states a United Nation Development Program (UNDP) report on the small West African country.
The report further states that illiteracy remains a persistent challenge and youth that lack basics skills and education find it extremely difficult to compete for the limited jobs available.
As a result, there are limited Sierra Leoneans who are of the opinion that they should sit down and wait for jobs but rather create jobs by starting their own businesses. The qualifiers of this year’s TEF programme falls within that category.
Tutu Bundu is a young Sierra Leonean entrepreneur, owner of Tesmaraneh Group, a fashion clothing company based in the capital city Freetown that is using local fabrics to produce unique African clothing and bags in a bid to promote West African Local designs and fabrics (batiks, tie-dye & woven) to the world.
While narrating her experience at the TEF, she explained that she has applied for the TEF programme two times but was not considered. She was finally selected in her third attempt.
Tutu described the TEF programme as the most amazing thing that has ever happened to her as an entrepreneur, adding that the programme creates a platform for her to interact and network with other entrepreneurs across Africa. She said she was inspired by most of the speakers during the forum but was mostly attached to the speech made by one Madam Claude Borna, a Benin entrepreneur whom she said with the help of the government of Benin was able to take to the TEF hundred entrepreneurs from Benin which exceeds the initial amount of people that qualified last year for the programme.
While talking about the challenges the team from Sierra Leone faced in Nigeria, Tutu mentioned that they were refused to gain entrance at the Sierra Leonean embassy in Nigeria even though they displayed their Sierra Leonean passports to the securities at the embassy to justify that they were from Sierra Leone.
“I don’t blame the Nigerian securities because they are only acting on orders, but if we would have got a Sierra Leonean security with them he or she would have understood our plight,” she pointed out.
Tutu said she would use her TEF seed money to purchase machines, employ more staff, increase production, acquire a production textile site that would host her workers and expand to Ghana and Kenya. She has already got partnership in Kenya that is only waiting for her products.
Another Sierra Leonean beneficiary, Semion A.T. Saffa-Turay, is a Monitoring and Evaluation specialist who owns Cardinal Agro Company, a Sierra Leonean Agro Processing Company that targets farmers, Agro processors, and Agro businesses in rice, palm oil and cassava. Semion has developed lots of projects as M&E specialist in different institutions he has been working during the past years but decided to divert his focus to Agro business this time around.
Just like Tutu, Semion appreciated the network opportunity that was provided by the foundation on the basis that the foundation gave them the platform for them to listen to global leaders and learn from whatever statement they made. He said he was inspired by Tony Elumelu out of the numerous speakers that delivered speeches during the forum.
“With the evidence that Tony was able to bring to a successful stage two failed Banks, that he later merged together to have the United Bank for Africa (UBA) tells you he is a visionary leader,” he said.
Semion said his business is in a startup stage and that he will be setting up his factory in which he will get some prototype that he would improve on. He promised to use the seed capital TEF will be providing to buy some materials to keep his business running.
Phebean Swill, a renowned TV personality in Sierra Leone and host of Phebe Swill Platform was the final entrepreneur from Sierra Leone. Swill presented a business idea on media and entertainment. She came in contact with the TEF programme while surfing the internet for opportunities online and that this is her first application.
Just like Semion, she was carried away by Tony Elumelu’s presentation during the TEF programme especially his fiscal discipline in making sure that he achieved his vision in life.
Speaking on challenges the team faced before leaving the shores of Sierra Leone, Swill explained that most corporate houses and government institutions were not forthcoming with assistance they needed to attend the program. However, they were rescued by Rokel Commercial Bank (after receiving a letter from the Youth Ministry) and Mercury International who paid for their flight tickets to attend the conference.
She felt let down by her government when she would learn that the Government of Cameroon chartered a flight for their entrepreneurs to attend the programme.
Even though she refused to speak on plans she has for her Media and Entertainment Company, Swill called on Sierra Leoneans to be on the lookout for great things as she will be utilizing whatever experience she has acquired from the TEF programme to improve her skills and give the very best in terms of providing standards in the media and entertainment industry.
The trio promised to organize programmes in the future that would help other Sierra Leoneans that wish to apply for the next TEF programme in a bid to help increase Sierra Leone’s participation in the programme.
Leading up to the presidential election campaigns in March 2018, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) candidate, Julius Maada Bio promised to introduce entrepreneurial education in the University that will develop and nurture the entrepreneurial mindsets of students to create jobs for themselves and for others even before they complete their university studies.
In that direction, it’s still a wait and see situation.
