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GO-4-GOALS Annual Youth Summit
A journey towards Catching Them Young, raising 12,000 Ethical Children/Teenage Savings Account Holders and Junior Investors come December 2017...
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2D-and-3D-Animation Coding Basics-4-Girls
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Junior Investors and Young Farmers Book Club
The Club activities are focused on developing Leadership Values and Survival Life-Skills. The monthly reading program is designed to encourage a love of books and reading while they learn financial Literacy, goals setting and Entrepreneurship through engaging Community change projects...
Thursday, 13 December 2012
The richest woman in the world
We didn't think it was possible, but
Oprah Winfrey has been dethroned as the richest black woman in the world. The
new leading lady is oil baroness Folorunsho Alakija from Nigeria. Drilling oil has reportedly made the 61-year-old owner of FAMFA Oil Limited a
very rich woman -- she is estimated to be worth at least $3.2 billion.
Folorunso Alakija born July 15, 1951 is a Nigerian Billionnaire fashion-designer and Executive
Director at FAMFA Oil, an indigenous Nigerian oil and gas exploration and
production company.
Her mom used to be a fabric merchant and she used
to help out, and through that she learnt a lot. After leaving the corporate
world in the early 80's (1984), she left to go the UK to study fashion
designing. She came back to Nigeria in 1985 a year after her training and
started her fashion house-Supreme Stitches at a 3-Bedroom apartment in
Surulere, Lagos and a year after establishing the company, she emerged as the
best Designer in the country in 1986.
Talking about her upbringing and growing up years-
she said she was born in 1951 into a large family, her dad had 8 wives and 52
children in his lifetime and she was the second surviving child, her mom was
the first wife. Quoting her, I had a very happy childhood and enjoyed my
upbringing, was taught etiquette and how to sit at the table. She and her
younger sister were sent to school abroad when she was 7 years old. They went
to a school in Wales, a private school for girls in Northern Wales, and they
were the only coloured (black) girls in the school. And because their fellow
mates couldn't pronounce their names, they coined them names Flo for Folorunsho
and Doyle for Doyin. They were in the school for 4 years, and at age 11 she and
Doyle moved back to Nigeria at the request of their parents who didn't want
them to lose their African values, culture and tradition.
On marriage- She got married in 1976 to her loving
husband and between them they have 4 kids, all boys. Who all schooled abroad
and are all engaged one way or the other in the family business.
On her involvement in the oil and gas industry, she
explained that through a friend she met while was still actively involved in
the world of fashion, they got involved in the business of oil. There was an
oil bloc no one wanted at that time for several reasons, it was this same oil
bloc they got allocated. They were approached in late 1996 by the then oil
giant Texaco who were sure the bloc had potentials as they had done their homework
well, and after negotiations that spanned 3 months we all agreed on terms and
the rest like they say is history. Later Texaco became Chevron and we struck
oil in commercial quantity and we were told the oil had been collecting in that
field for 17 million years. We consider ourselves lucky that we were allocated
that particular oil field. That's the early history of FAMFA OIL.
On philanthropy- She became a more religious person
at the age of 40 & from then on found passion in caring for the
under-privileged. And this passion led to her establishing a foundation, Rose
of Sharon Foundation. The foundation's main focus is in helping widows,
orphans and their families any which way possible, she believes there is a
particular stigma widows face that affects them adversely, so her idea is to be
a stop gap for these marginalised set, who by African culture and tradition
lose out immediately after the death of their husbands. So her idea is to help provide
a platform that aids by helping with interest free loans to at-least start a
business or continue with one. A most welcomed development we think, if a few
more of our well to do (rich, wealthy) would endeavour to stand in the gap and
help the less privileged then the world would be a much better place to live
in. Her foundation also hopes to do more, by building schools or vocational
centres.
hoffingtonpost.com
businessdayonline.com
ventures-africa.com
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