Jumia, Project Alert and L’Oreal Partner to Empower Distressed Women

Violence against women is a silent epidemic that affects an estimated 50% of women in Nigeria. Among educated women, cases of beatings by spouses have reportedly increased 10% within the past 3 years. Even children often become victims as well. Yet, a vast majority of these cases go unreported for reasons including fear and a perceived lack of choices.

In honour of International Women’s Day, Jumia Nigeria, in collaboration with Project Alert, a charity that promotes and protects the rights of women and young girls, and the world’s largest cosmetics company, L’Oreal, joined forces to celebrate women who are standing up against violence.

This special event took place on the 11^th of March, 2015 at the Jumia auditorium in Lagos. During the event, representatives from Jumia presented Jumia J-Force and Jumia Marketplace, two programs geared towards creating financial independence and self-empowerment for Nigerians. The event was an eye-opener for over 60 women who participated in the training and empowering sessions. They were visibly encouraged by the possibilities presented.

Jumia experts demonstrated how to participate in Jumia J-Force and Jumia Marketplace and highlighted tremendous success stories. The most successful female members of the programs were also present to share their experiences of how these programs changed their lives. The Head of Communications for Jumia Nigeria, Wunmi Onile-Ere also corroborated these stories by saying “An empowered woman is a confident and independent woman. The Jumia J-Force program and Jumia Marketplace are great platforms to start a legitimate and lucrative business with little or no capital. Jumia already represents a viable platform for entrepreneurship with the continuous aim to empower Nigerians. I hope that more distressed women will see that there are many better alternatives than staying in abusive homes.”

The Director of Project Alert also expressed her excitement at Jumia’s programs to empower women all over Nigeria. In her statement, while addressing the audience, Dr Josephine Effah-Chukwuma said, “At Project Alert, we are passionate about women and young girls, we organise training sessions on several hand crafts and skills including bead making, cake baking and soap making. I am especially happy that this is happening because Jumia is giving us a perfect platform via the Jumia Marketplace and the Jumia J-Force for our women to showcase their handiwork to all Nigerians. It enables them to start their businesses right away with help from the Jumia experts every step of the way.” 

Participants went home with lots of confidence-boosting gift items from L’Oreal brands and Jumia gift vouchers as well. When some of the women were interviewed on what the seminar had done to them, their responses were nothing short of fulfilment and excitement.