Rosemary Obi, TEF Alumna, To Empower 10,000 Women By 2025

Fuelled by a strong desire to give back to the society, in 2018, Rosemary Obi, Co-founder, ReneAfrik Designery LTD, kicked off her ‘Empower 1000 women’ Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative for her business. At its inception, the goal with this initiative was simple yet important: empower 1000 women through free trainings in makeup, baking, tye and dye, gele tying, amongst other vocational skills. This mission has since evolved as Rosemary is on her way to empowering 10,000 women in the next four years.

Rosemary’s doggedness and ambition to positively impact the African continent earned her a well-deserved recognition as the ‘The Most Impactful African Entrepreneur 2019’, by the foundation three years after receiving the grant from its Entrepreneurship Programme in 2016.

Her impact journey started in the same year as she launched Africa’s first ever make-up reality show tagged ‘FX Africa’. This is yet another initiative by Rosemary that aims to unite the continent through makeup and to support upcoming makeup artists in the industry. This largely successful reality TV show saw contestants from across Africa.

To further advance in its mission, Rosemary has partnered with various makeup brands and will be taking the competition online in a bid to reach and impact more makeup artists on the continent.

What many saw simply as a challenge brought by the pandemic, she saw as opportunity to not just limit her impact to just creative women in rural areas but also women who might have lost their sources of income or simply need an extra source of income, through the ‘Empower 1000 women’ CSR initiative.

Rosemary’s story is inspiring because what started as a love for makeup during her university days has now grown to a platform that has greatly impacted 3,000 women across Africa.

All of these commendable and significant impact, have been achieved while Rosemary has successfully co-run Reneafric Designery, a handcraft shoe manufacturing company in Lagos, Nigeria.

For Rosemary, her satisfaction comes from being able to impact her immediate community and Africa at large. She is driven by the ability to give creatives a platform to dream which further drives her business mandates – Discover, Inspire and Develop. These three objectives form the bedrock off all initiaves launched through Reneafric Designery.