Wema Bank Launches MOWA-SARA Accelerator Programme

…Partners with Federal Ministry of Women Affairs to empower 500,000 women.

Through its women-focused proposition, SARA by Wema, Wema Bank, Nigeria’s most innovative bank and pioneer of Africa’s first fully digital bank, ALAT, has partnered with the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs to launch MOWA x SARA Accelerator Programme, an initiative aimed at empowering 500,000 women across Nigeria with vocational and business management skills.

SARA by Wema is Wema Bank’s women-focused proposition established with the goal of promoting gender inclusion and equality by empowering women with tailored resources, opportunities and solutions essential to enable them thrive personally and professionally. Through SARA, Wema Bank continues to empower thousands of women across Nigeria with access to finance and financial support, access to market, networking opportunities, affordable to free healthcare and a host of other benefits curated specifically for women; partnering with reputable brands and institutions where ideal to proliferate impact. The newly inaugurated MOWA x SARA Accelerator Programme is one of these such partnerships which is positioned to transform the lives of women across the country for the best.

MOWA x SARA Accelerator Programme is set to run for 24 months and will cover 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory. The focus will be on two areas: vocational skills and business management skills with a schedule encompassing two days of soft skills and business management skills, followed by two days of vocational training. The final day will be dedicated to an assessment and evaluation session. For vocational skills, the programme will target three main aspects which include food processing, fashion designing and hairdressing. The 5 day in-person training session will be organised into eight cohorts with the initial pilot phase starting in Anambra and spaning to Ekiti and Kano. This capacity building and women empowerment programme will equip more Nigerian women to earn revenue, become economically active, contribute to national development and will ultimately serve to further bridge the gap in gender inclusion.

Tunde Mabawonku, Wema Bank’s Executive Director of Retail and Digital, expressed confidence in the programme’s potential for empowering women to thrive. According to her, “Nigeria’s ever-evolving macroeconomic landscape calls for an acutely intentional approach to providing tailored solutions and opportunities to empower our people, especially the women. At Wema Bank, we understand this need as captured in our mission of empowering lives through innovation and we are very intentional about tailoring our empowerment efforts to the needs of our diverse customer demographics. This commitment is evident in our solutions, partnerships, products, initiatives, and propositions; one of which is SARA by Wema. Recognising the need for tailored solutions that help women thrive, we launched SARA in 2019 as a dedicated avenue for reaching out to women across Nigeria, empowering them with unique solutions tailored to their needs even beyond banking, and providing them with the support they need to maximise their potential. This is the basis of our work through SARA, and this is what has informed the launch of MOWA x SARA Accelerator Programme. Our goal is to help women navigate the challenging economic terrain by providing them with skills for self-employment, resources for productivity and support for success”.

“I encourage every woman out there who is willing to learn a skill with potential for income generation, to register for the MOWA x SARA Accelerator Programme. We also have grants reserved for this programme so it’s a total package designed to help these women become economically active. Inclusion runs deep for us so we have curated this programme such that women of various ages from any part of the country can participate and reap the benefits of this programme. To every woman out there, I also take this opportunity to invite you to join the SARA Community, our community for women who want better. There are so many opportunities rooted in the SARA and every woman can tap into this extensive range of benefits as a SARA Woman”, Mabawonku said.

The Minister for Women Affairs, Uju Kennedy-Ohanenye, added, “I believe that if we empower the women and they start making money, a lot of prevalent challenges faced by women as a result of gender inequality may be averted. This partnership is beyond the Federal Ministry of Women Affair, it extends to the Nigerian Women Affairs. Our goal is to ensure the sustainability of all women empowerment initiatives, which is why we are bringing in the private sector. On this project, Wema Bank is evidently ready to fly and we are committed to flying together to achieve our objectives”.

MOWA x SARA Accelerator Programme was launched at a Memorandum Of Understanding (MOU) signing ceremony which held on Monday, September 30, 2024 at the Ministry of Women Affairs Office in Abuja.