Meet Shecluded, founded by social entrepreneur, Ifeoma Uddoh, as a Nigerian fintech credit company whose mission is to power financial freedom for African women by facilitating entrepreneurship and simplified access to financial services, through technology.
Shecluded’s FINWOMEN project provides financial products, training, and support to 1000 women aged 18-35 across five states in Nigeria.
“Our FinWomen project, supported by Challenge Fund for Youth Employment, will not only support 1000 Nigerian women to gain meaningful self-employment, but will also create up to 3,500 direct and indirect jobs for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled Nigerian youths. With CFYE’s support, the project aim is to intentionally invest over 1million euro in women-owned micro, small and medium enterprises (WMSMEs) in 2 years.”
“With the support of CFYE in the design and implementation of the project, Shecluded aims to accelerate recruitment, enable training opportunities for successful female entrepreneurs and businesses and help financing 400 new start-ups and 600 existing businesses.”
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Shecluded: A background
[About] 24.5 million of young Nigerians (18-35) are either unemployed or underemployed; with women making up a higher sum of the total number. This is because they face additional barriers in comparison to men when seeking decent employment.
Most unemployed/under-employed women in turn focus on self-employment, but then face a barrier of exclusion from essential financial services such as credit to facilitate business growth. From a survey of 7000 women entrepreneurs in the Shecluded networks, 89% stated that they started a business because they had to leave employment or were unemployed. They are challenged in finding decent employment, the challenges range from a low skill set, time poverty due to their role in the family and a lack of opportunities.