West Africa Affiliates
Regional Overview
In West Africa, Partners Worldwide walks alongside businesspeople and entrepreneurs in both urban and rural communities of Liberia, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana and Nigeria to create jobs and overcome poverty. People of West Africa are subsistence farmers, producers of cloth, fisherman, nomadic cattle and sheep herders, seamstresses, retailers, government workers, traders and merchants.
Since 2001, Partners Worldwide has partnered with businesspeople in West Africa who desire to strengthen the marketplace. Each one participates in mentoring relationships and trains in business or agricultural stewardship. In addition, business owners have better access to capital through village savings, micro loans, or small and medium loans that stabilize businesses and create jobs.
Ghana - Hopeline Institute
Accra
Ghana Business Owner “recycling” her knowledge on toward others
As a result of her business training this year, business owner Felicia Baidoo Sagoe now has the knowledge she needs to manage a successful and sustainable business, and is “recycling” that knowledge on toward others.
This spring, Felicia participated in Partners Worldwide’s 12-week small and medium enterprise (SME) training offered through Hopeline Institute, the local Partners Worldwide affiliate in Ghana. There, she sharpened her business skills and discovered how to better incorporate her Christian faith into her business practices day-to-day.
Within months, she started her business “Twelve Baskets”, named after Jesus’ call for his disciples to gather the remaining 12 baskets of bread. With products made of recycled materials, Felicia is committed to creating jobs as she produces soaps, bags, and briquettes.
The impacts on the whole value-chain are astounding, she says. For example, by walking alongside local carpenters and purchasing their leftover sawdust, Felicia reduces their excess waste and uses it as a key ingredient to produce briquettes. The final product offers an environmentally-friendly solution that lasts longer than charcoal, a typical heating resource used by women whose primary income is selling food in the market.
Recycling her knowledge as well, Felicia mentors and trains 10 suppliers in her business--especially vulnerable women---to strengthen their understanding of production, branding, and distribution. In addition,she leads a business as mission Bible study for those she trains.
Prior to the business training, she struggled to maintain an exporting company she had operated for years, especially as she tried to keep clients in a fluctuating global market. In late 2010, she put her former business on hold. “It wasn’t an easy decision,” she says. To her, the business was not solely a source of income, but a ministry in which she could serve her employees and community.
“I had thought about business as mission very often prior to the training,” says Felicia, “but now can really incorporate it into my business. [...] I want to allow other people to stand on their own,” she says about those she trains, “to help disadvantage women get on their feet.”