FCMB Empowers Women, Partners House of Tara on the Beauty-Business-On-the-Go (BBOG) Initiative

Leading financial services provider, First City Monument Bank (FCMB) Limited, has partnered with House of Tara International to launch an economic empowerment initiative for women known as the Beauty Business On the Go (BBOG).  The initiative is aimed at empowering women to become entrepreneurs so as to enable them realise their aspirations through the solid platform provided by the project. This is in line with one of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) focal areas of the Bank and its value as a helpful financial institution. House of Tara International is a well-known Nigerian-based beauty brand and make-up school.

In a statement, FCMB and House of Tara explained that the BBOG initiative involves the recruitment and empowering of 5,000 women to become beauty representatives. As beauty representatives, they will be selling multiple beauty brands as a part time or full time business thereby creating job opportunities for themselves.  The representatives will be offered trainings, finance, marketing support and other skills necessary to grow their business.

The statement added that the project will be executed nationwide and entrepreneurship trainings will be held in select cities across the country. These are Lagos, Port Harcourt, Benin, Enugu, Kano, Kaduna, Ibadan, Ilorin and Abuja. The project is targeted at professionals in the beauty industry, existing beauty representatives, make-up artists, housewives, unemployed graduates, students and others interested in building a career in the growing beauty industry. In the course of the project, there will be regular conferences and special award nights where the best beauty representatives will be rewarded.

Commenting on FCMB’s involvement in the project, the Head of Communications and CSR, Mrs. Uchenna Mojekwu, said, the BBOG initiative is another demonstration of its commitment towards encouraging women, especially the youth to discover their potentials with a view to aligning such talents with value-added ventures that will make them contribute more to national development.

According to her, ”FCMB as a helpful bank and an institution which caters for all segments of the society, decided to use this platform to further engage women. As catalysts of social and economic development, we believe that by effectively impacting them, they will discover their talent and develop some productive skill. In this way, they will be working towards the building of a sustainable life and society’’. Mrs. Mojekwu pointed out that, ‘’apart from the excitement the BBOG initiative will create, it is also an opportunity to effectively engage the participants and provide them with a platform to fulfil their dreams, considering the tremendous impact which the beauty industry has been making all over the world’’

Also speaking the Chief Executive Officer of House of Tara, Mrs. Tara Fela-Durotoye, said that, ‘’ our greatest strength has been building on future generation of women who are more informed and equipped with the skill they need to determine their own destinies through training programmes such as Beauty Business On-the-Go’’. Mrs Fela-Durotoye said that through their make-up studios’ spread across Nigeria, they had managed to inculcate a culture of self-belief among young people.

First City Monument Bank (FCMB) is a member of FCMB Group Plc, which is one of the leading financial services institutions in Nigeria with subsidiaries that are market leaders in their respective segments. Having successfully transformed to a retail and commercial banking-led group, FCMB expects to continue to distinguish itself by delivering exceptional services, while enhancing the growth and achievement of personal and business aspirations of its customers.