Success Story of Peace, 2019 TEF Alumni in Agriculture Sector
According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, about 19.4 million people will face food insecurity across Nigeria between June and August 2022. According to the report, the food crisis would affect Nigerians in 21 states and the FCT, including 416,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). It noted that about 14.4 million people, including 385,000 IDPs in 21 States and the FCT of Nigeria, are already in the food crisis till May 2022.
Peace Agwu Okorie took the initiative to address the hunger and gender gap issues in his community, promoting good health and well-being of young mothers and women in Abia and Benue State through the establishment of PAO Modern farms, which is a social enterprise to reduce farm produce wastage to the barest minimum. She implemented this transformation by enabling them to build backyard sustainable poultry farming.
Peace’s passion to eradicate hunger and gender issues emanated the idea to empower 20 young mothers and women in 6 months through training to enable them to build sustainable poultry farming to address the gender gap issues by creating jobs.
She started the business by producing 10kg of jute leaves and 200 birds every two months through the support, she got through the TEF program. She currently produces 25kg bags of jute leaves and 800 birds every two months, using modern nipple pipe construction, making an average of USD 501 Monthly. She employs six people directly and 23 people indirectly.
Peace acknowledged that the TEF training on digital marketing strategies educated her on the solutions needed for her business. Their customer database has grown from 10% to 41% largely using digital marketing and social media platforms to advertise their goods. This has also increased their profit margins from 20% to 51% since they received funding.
“TEF Training on Digital Marketing Strategies Sessions educated me on the solutions. In-fact, we used digital marketing strategies to reach a wider targeted audience at a lower cost using WhatsApp, Telegram, Facebook, Instagram etc. making us grown our customer’s data base from 10% to 41% which eventually help us earning higher revenues from 20% profit margins to 51% profit margins after the TEF programme.”
Peace is passionate about learning and acquiring knowledge; training, capacity building, and special skills because she understands that “to learn is to be alive, never satisfied with the knowledge you have but always seeking more.”
About The Tony Elumelu Foundation
The Tony Elumelu Foundation is the leading philanthropy empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, driving poverty eradication, catalysing job creation across all 54 African countries, and ensuring inclusive economic empowerment. Since the launch of the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme in 2015, the Foundation has trained over 1.5 million young Africans on its digital hub, TEFConnect, and disbursed nearly USD$100 million in direct funding to 18,000 African women and men, who have collectively created over 400,000 direct and indirect jobs. The Foundation’s mission is rooted in Africapitalism, which positions the private sector, and most importantly entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the African continent.