She
was among the selected six to attend the 17th Ordinary Summit of the African
Heads of State in Malabo in 2011, and was the last to speak. Not moved by the
presence of seating presidents, she spoke ardently about the challenges that
affect the young people in Africa, something she has worked on till date and
remains passionate about.
“When
an opportunity presents itself, we must make the best use of it. Sometimes we
may be lucky to have a second chance, but sometimes we may not. So when a door
has been opened, you must walk through it and make the best use of it,” she
fires her opening salvo.
Vibrant,
industrious and goal-oriented, Cynthia Umoru is my Inspiring Woman for this
week. Cynthia Mosunmola Umoru, a Zoology graduate from the Lagos State
University (LASU), is the founder of Honeysuckles PTL Ventures, a company
engaged principally in farming, food production, processing and distribution –
a company she started right out of college. The company recently launched its
first flagship retail outlet under the Farmshoppe™ in Ikeja, Lagos.
Cynthia
is creating a step-by-step process to help young people take up farming, and
for schools, government, and businesses to provide the kinds of next generation
services and products to move them through the process. For Cynthia, it is
about influencing the younger ones positively and making them understand the
importance of engaging in positive things, such as agriculture, by introducing
them to modern agribusiness, an initiative she started in college and from
which she has found great success. She also gets them started on the path to
their own successful agribusinesses. “I am engaging schools, government, and
businesses to understand how absent the infrastructure for participating in
modern agriculture is, especially for youths.
If
facilities are available, and infrastructure is in place, it will become easier
to reach out to the youth who must indeed be convinced about something before
venturing into it. When the facilities are not available, it becomes a
challenge. Not daunted by all the inadequacies the environment poses, I am
determined to inspire the youths because gradually, things are beginning to
look up, attention is being given to agriculture, but a lot more needs to be
done,” she reveals.
To
date, Cynthia has convinced the Ministry of Agriculture in Lagos State to set
up a training programme to teach business to young farmers, using one of her
farms for research and training. She has also set up a programme for women
farmers aged 16-35 to be trained through the Lagos Business School. She also
works through existing youth organisations to continue her outreach to youth.
Cynthia’s
outreach and training activities have been funded by her private venture,
Honeysuckles PTL. However, as she expands, she is also pursuing grants from
foundations and government.
If
there is a project that is burning in Cynthia’s heart, it is the Abira
Agricbusiness Support Project. Hear her talk about it: “This project provides
services that include Agricultural Entrepreneurship Development, Accounting and
Financial Management, Financial Brokering, Technical Training, Strategy Development,
and Product Development. The reason for this is to make available a consistent
support, from conception to implementation to evaluation. I believe strongly
that Abira will serve as a concrete model and reference point of the kind of
programme needed to really propel agriculture into the 21st century in Nigeria
and many other parts of Africa.
“Farming,
before now in Nigeria, was termed business of low-lives and with the barrier to
entry being so high for young people to actively participate, but I am glad
that that notion is gradually becoming a thing of the past as youths are
beginning to embrace agriculture. If only we knew how rich we are as a nation
agriculturally, we won’t concentrate too much on oil for economic development.
I have decided to chart this course and I am positive that with the way things
are going, in the nearest future, agriculture will be the in-thing; the earlier
we catch the ‘bug’ the better. Come join me on this ‘train’. Nigeria is heading
for a greater destination and with you and me, we can make that change, O yes
we can!”
Umoru is an Alumnus of the Pan African
University under the Enterprise Development Center (CEM), and an alumna of the
US Department of State’s International Visitors Leadership Programme. She is a
young Nigerian Ambassador and a youth advocate who serves as a Youth Consultant
to the African Union Commission. She is a Goldman Sachs 10,000 women Scholar.
She started ABIRA Agribusiness Support Project in 2009 and by November 2011,
this initiative earned her the prestigious ASHOKA Fellowship. She is one of the
2012 NAIJA Diamonds
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