my Journey

My names are Stella Ozemoya, I live in Lagos Nigeria, although was born and grew up in Northern Nigeria, Sokoto, and Zamfara State. I am the first child out of seven children, I live in the rural community back then in the north, my parent where into farming as a second source of income they also process their product mostly for our personal consumption, we also had a milling machine where we process agricultural produces most for rural women, I guess that’s where I got my passion for agro, my mother was a fashion designer and my father was a soldier, meanwhile my parents kept up with farming and processing, after high school I left home to study in a college, I studied architecture but majored in fashion and design, I later relocated to Lagos Nigeria for greener pasture, when I got married and starting having children, as a young mother I was faced with the challenge of being a mother, a wife and working, I made the decision of starting my own business, it was a bit tough, because of lack funds, inadequate training and knowledge of the business, cultural differences, government policies etc. I had to resign from my job and stayed home and worked from home for 7years attending various classes both online and real time on entrepreneurship management, financial management business planning and implementation, I had a good relationship with my mother, she suggested I should go into agro processing, although I didn’t listen to her because I was living in the urban area, I was focusing on my fashion and design business which to an extent was a success, I taught both young men and women on sewing and making clothes. When my family moved to the rural area, it affected my business, and here comes my mother again with her agro processing mantra, all this while she kept sending her processed farm produce to me which I kept giving away as gifts, and people loved this product, it took a mentor of mine, who I respect, he told me to start processing and making it commercial, I took his advice and start my own agro processing company, my passion for women empowerment came as a result of meeting with women in the rural community who supply us with raw material, most of them don’t have ideas on how to process their harvest, how to market their products etc. they labour and toil and at the end of the day the remains of post-harvest waste is high this is a major challenge in the agricultural sector in Nigeria, statistics shows that 60% of the work force in agriculture are women why not empowered them with digital tools to help them become financially independent, my desire is to connect young women especially in the urban community who want to going into agriculture using ICT with the rural women who have the raw material and come up with a finish product, whereby both parties benefits, with my experience and network my vision is to set up an agro hub, where women in Nigeria both in the rural and urban area can have a meeting place, we do this through our various training at the farm gate and workshops. Our strategy is achieving this, is forming cooperative group, liaising with government agencies and NGOs both locally and internationally who support women empowerment.