Women's SME Accelerator Programme: Meet the mentees | Part VIII
Women in business are at the heart of FAO’s mandate to reduce rural poverty and achieve food security for all.
That’s why in October 2022, 50 women entrepreneurs working in the agrifood sector across Sub-Saharan Africa were chosen to participate in the first year of the FAO-IAFN Women’s Accelerator Mentorship Programme for Women-led SMEs in Africa.
Participants were selected from an open call for expressions of interest by a panel of experts from FAO and IAFN.
CONNECT Portal will be regularly featuring the stories of the hard-working women who took part in the programme. You can read the eighth in our series of articles on these women below.
Damilola Adeyemi
Damilola Aminat Adeyemi is an environmentalist, cleantech enthusiast and CTO and co-founder of D-Olivette Enterprise, an environmental and renewable energy social enterprise using biotechnologies to create accessible and affordable clean energy for rural, off-grid and agrarian communities in Africa. Damilola is passionate about using digital technologies to tackle energy-poverty, environmental and climate challenges. To that end, the Nigeria-based D-Olivette Enterprise helps thousands of rural women in sub-Saharan Africa access clean cooking fuel through a popular domestic reactor called the Kitchen Box. The Kitchen Box turns household food waste and biodegradable wastewater into biogas, clean water and organic fertilizer. Damilola’s technology has been fine-tuned such that the biogas can be used 100 percent safely, and even transported around in ISO-certified handbags for resale or usage in other locations.
Kekeletso Motopi Matli
Kekeletso Motopi Matli is the founder of the Lesotho-based Leseli Development Resources Centre, a member of a rural women’s group trying to raise household food security and funds through agriculture. In addition to producing piglets, eggs and chicks, the centre trains women to be resilient and support their families through small farms which could be worked on by one or two people.
Over the years, women have often served as family heads in Lesotho as the men have left to seek employment in the mines of South Africa. The country is heavily dependent on migrant labor, causing food production to be low due to poor funding and lack of skills. For this reason, the Leseli Development Resources Centre emphasises strengthening the resilience of local women who too often lack the extra hands they need to ensure their households can grow enough to keep them fed.
Kekeletso is a passionate development worker with experience in community development, mobilization, and management as well as a communication specialist with more than 20 years’ experience in journalism. She has been an active participant in human rights advocacy, particularly in human tracking, gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health rights.
Konan Jeanne-Armelle
Konan Jeanne is CEO of Biosave-Ci, an organic fertiliser production and marketing company in Côte d'Ivoire. The fertiliser is made from recycled organic agricultural waste combined with micro-organisms. It improves soil structure and fertilizes the soil naturally, while protecting its health and the environment. Biosave also has a digital application that enables farmers to learn how to recycle their own waste into compost.
Lea Babite
Lea is Managing Partner at LEPAG-BOYAMA SARL, a company created by three young Congolese partners living in the town of Kisangani in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company was founded in 2019 with a share capital of FC1000000 (equivalent to $500). For the past four years they have been processing agricultural and livestock products. The company has three flagship products: the production of flour for infant porridge using local products (maize, soya and caterpillar flour) that are easily found in the Isangi and Yangambi areas of the province. Secondly, they transform pineapple fruit into juice, which is mixed with other ingredients such as ginger and papaya. Thirdly, the company also sells eggs.
Among the strategies developed by the company to sell their products, they work in partnership with other organisations, notably primary and secondary schools, restaurant owners, nunneries and priests, as well as orphanages and households living in peri-urban areas. LEPAG-Boyama is part of a network called Mutuelles des Jeunes Entrepreneurs, which provides a framework for exchanging best practice in entrepreneurship in the Congolese context, as well as financial support through the AVEC (Association Villageoise d'Epargne et de Crédit) system.
