Mandela fellows impact women in Ashanti

The Mandela Washington Fellowship Association of Ghana (MFWAG) has marked 10 years of its existence in Ghana, with an event to empower women to be environmentally and economically viable in societies.

The association is made up of young Ghanaians who are alumni of the young African Leadership flagship programme of the U.S. government’s Young African Leaders Initiative.

At a regional project held at Fab Hub Ashanti, a learning and events space run by The Fabulous Woman Network in the Atwima Kwawoma community of Aboabo Kesse, the event assembled 62 female entrepreneurs from the Atwima Kwawoma and Bosome Freho districts.

It was on the theme: "Empowering Women to Lead in Environmentally Sustainable Entrepreneurship."

The participants were taken through topics such as social media, finance, health and recycling of waste.

The president for MWAG, Johannes Thomas Arthur, in an address, said the fellowship aimed at training the youth to be transformational leaders in areas such as politics, business, governance among other areas in the society.

"We have to learn and pass the knowledge on to other colleagues to help Ghana to develop," Mr Arthur said.

Social media

A 2017 Nelson Mandela Fellow (NMF) who doubles as the founder of Fabulous Women Network, Ama Duncan, schooled the women in how to deploy social media to boost their brand awareness, promotion of products, interacting with target audience, networking, marketing opportunities among others.

Sharing her experience with the entrepreneurs, Ms Duncan, who said her career took an interesting turn following a social media exposure, told the women not to underestimate the power of social media.

On how to leverage social media platforms to excel in their entrepreneurship drive, she asked the women to let people know, like and trust them.

She also urged the women to know their target group if they wanted to reach out to them.

"If you want to sell on social media, you need to know your target group and where they belong to.”

She urged her colleague women to be truthful in their businesses, assuring them that God would honour them in return.

Finance

A 2022 NMF, Dr Eric Duah, who educated the women on finance in areas such as bookkeeping, source of finance, source document, expectation and agreement among others, advised the women to learn to run two different accounts, namely personal and business accounts, when running a business.

"The money meant for the business differs from your own money. If you fail to maintain this equation, your business will collapse because you do not know which fund actually belongs to the business and vice versa.”