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‘Fashion Empowers will help young people attain self sustainability through arts and fashion’ – Abby Osoba,  founder

Self sustainability and independence is possible for young people through creative arts – that’s the message of Abby Osoba, the founder of Fashion Empowers.

Fashion Empowers, in its maiden year, is an annual fashion event of Globally Igniting Africa (GIA) where budding fashion designers get to meet and be mentored by established fashion designers and other professionals to help them discover their purpose and equip them with the know-how to transform their dreams to reality.

This year’s edition is slated for Thursday, October 29 and Friday, October 30, 2015 at Terra Kulture, Victoria Island, Lagos and will see the cream of the crop including the likes of Onari Duke, Zizi Cardow and Funke Bucknor-Obruthe provide mentoring for young fashion entrepreneurs.

ENCOMIUM Weekly sat with the brain behind the initiative to assess her team’s readiness and the drive behind the concept.

How ready are you and your team for the maiden edition of Fashion Empowers?

I am sure you know the feeling you get when venturing into something new. My team and I are very anxious and overwhelmed at the moment. The word ready is a relative term, so all I can say for now is that we are looking forward to the outcome of all our efforts. We are somewhat ready!

What inspired the Fashion Empowers initiative?

As part of Globally Igniting Africa (GIA)’s vision, we focus on mentoring; and when we did some research on the areas which still needed some attention for the youths, we easily discovered that much more work was required to help align young women and men with the right mentoring in the arts and fashion world.

Second, we believe in order to continually build a self-sustaining community, we need to assist young women and men not only in the right direction, but also prepare them with the right mindset for entrepreneurship.

What should participants look forward to and why should they be part of it?

All our registered mentees should definitely look forward to productive and life-changing sessions with our first class speakers and mentors who have been carefully selected for this purpose. We also encourage our mentees to take advantage of the opportunity to shine and be the best they can be; we sincerely hope that they will dare to fulfill their dreams with no limitations.

Tell us more Fashion Empowers.

Fashion Empowers is an annual mentoring programme of Globally Igniting Africa (GIA), geared to help young women and men fulfill their dream and achieve their destiny. It is a mentoring programme that seeks to help mentees understand their purpose and passion and align them with the right mentor, coach and sponsor. Fashion Empowers is a programme that will fully engage young women and men in Africa and teach them to continually embrace self sustainability and independence through arts and fashion.

What are the programmes you have planned for the two days of the event?

We have a two-day event packed featuring two mentoring workshops, a Q&A and interactive networking session for the mentees and mentors, an awareness seminar and rounding it off would be awards and recognition time with loads to eat and drink while being entertained.

Who are some of the mentors and speakers for this maiden edition?

We’ll be having the likes of fashion designers such as Zizi Cardow, Folu Ajayi of House of Dabira, Nkechi Harry Ngonadi of NHN Couture, Henrietta Agboola of House of Henri and others. Also, we have the wife of Cross River state former governor, Onari Duke; Mercy Makinde of iAspire Radio; media personalities, Gbemi Olateru-Olagbegi and Shine Begho; CEO of Kuddy Cosmetics, Kudirat Fashola; actress, Adunni Ade; CEO of Sahara Group, Tonye Cole; Funke Bucknor-Obruthe; Adeolu Adeboye, CEO of Wisemen Apparel; Emmanuel Ikubese, Feyikemi Kukoyi; CEO of Tomoj Solutions Inc., Toyin Johnson and a host of others.

-MICHAEL NWOKIKE

Encomium

Written by Encomium

A media, tech and events company.

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