Women in the workplace - CSR-in-Action

I read this article from a newsletter I received from +csrinaction and just had to share. My focus is the last paragraph, that is a call to entrepreneurs to develop solutions to this challenge that women have in balancing their work and home.

Enjoy.....

www.csrinaction.org

The workplace must be made more flexible to support the challenges faced by working mothers! This only echoes the subtle message missed by most observers as they laid blame on the mother of three missing children who, thanks to heavens have been found and their abductors arrested in the course of this month. Owing to the stereotype society has created for women who should manage the home front and take care of the children, and the outright careless approach to ensuring the safety of her children, this article will be a very hard one to write. Instead this article aims to raise questions about options that Mrs Orekoya could have had which would have prevented the tragedy.

While we do not aim to justify the actions of the parents who left their children in the care of a total stranger, it is worthy of note that the challenges of life and the need to be productive in this century has thus created an atmosphere were both parents may need to combine efforts and pool resources.

Still not justifying her actions, let us attempt to paint a picture of the ‘worst case scenario’.

• What if Mrs Orekoya like several other mothers across the world actually is the breadwinner of her home?
• What if she was a high ranking executive in her organization on whose actions depended the livelihoods of several other employees? 

It cannot be denied that women are already an integral part of the workforce and support their families in the most profound ways.

A look at the Nigerian working environment however shows that the working conditions do not necessarily support the working mother. Ironically a lot of these organisations are signatories to the +United Nations Global Compact principles, one of which states that companies should uphold the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation and claim to have policies which support the achievement of the MDG targets, one of which speaks directly to promoting gender equality and empowerment of women. The objective of both principles, when applied to the Orekoya’s case implies that organisations should encourage and support efforts to build a climate of tolerance and equal access to opportunities for occupational development for women.

The case of women empowerment is as that of a farmer with a hoe. If provided a tractor, his productivity will increase in multiples. World over, women have made giant strides taking great stand and changing the world with their career pursuit and there is a need to further encourage them to pursue their dreams.

What then can organisations do to support women who want a work and family balanced life?

A much more conducive workplace and balanced life has shown over time to help productivity, some of the things which some organisations are already doing and other can adopt to promote a balanced family/work life for women includes:

 Creche at work:

Companies can support women to continue their work by having a creche at in the workplace or supporting women to pay for a creche nearby. If Mrs Orekoya had access to one of such facilities, she may not have left the children at home on the fateful day. Currently a number of organisations have fully functional crèche services in major buildings for staff children including Total Nigeria and Access Bank plc.

Co-organising holiday activities for children: 

The Orekoya kids were kidnapped during a holiday period when their mother had to work. Suppose other mothers, with support from their employer organised a week long holiday program for the children to creatively engage them while their mother goes to work, this incident may not have occurred

Flexible working hours during children holidays:

Many women will be happy to accept this offer as it allows for a family centred work environment. More so, it allows for mothers to spend more time and dedicate more attention to their children

Certified nannies: 

How about a countrywide database that allows users verify the data history of domestic staff before? A service like this exists and companies need to subscribe. VerifyMeNigeria offers such a service.

It is important that organisations create a conducive environment for staff regardless of their gender. Collective action or a change in a perception to support women can help prevent a reoccurrence of this.

Patriotism in Nigeria - It's not about a country's accomplishments

I am volunteer for a non-profit group known as the generation for societal change, made up of young vibrant people with a passion for this country. Every once in a while, we hold workshops in schools where we discuss benefits of values with the students. It is usually a different one each time, ranging from courtesy, punctuality, integrity, respect and so on. Earlier on in the week though, I got a call from Seyi to say we had a workshop in unilag, no sweat until I asked for the topic and he said "patriotism " haaaa, lobatan. Lol. How was I supposed to treat this topic without choking on myself?

While preparing for the event, I looked up a few quotes on Patriotism and found  these two as my hit quotes, don't ask me why;

Loyalty to country always, loyalty to government when it deserves it .... Mark Twain

The duty of a Patriot is to protect its country from its government...Thomas Paine

These gave me a good place to start without getting stoned by the students. But then I started a search for reasons to be patriotic about Nigeria, some hard facts to present to them (and myself apparently). Perhaps if the re-basing had already been done before then, that could have been a point (NOT!! hahaha). You wouldn't imagine all the horrors on the internet about Nigeria, until you try to search yourself. Even worse is that majority of the tongue lashing and washing is by Nigerians, yes US! I even saw an article on Nairaland sharing 50 or so statistics that would make you ashamed to be Nigerian! Then I saw something and it hit me;
Patriotism has nothing to do with a country's accomplishments, It's about a heritage, it's about who you are. We are Nigerian, that's who we are, forget how this came to be, that is after the fact, we have to make this family work.

So back to the matter, from my research I found a mini list of the benefits of patriotism and adapted it to our context;

• Social Support
  There is a sense of community, motivation and inspiration among citizens. It's not "them" but "us". Citizens who are patriotic don't turn the other way when they see something that is not right.
• National ImprovementThe more people we have interested in governance the better. The general apathy towards how our money is being spent and how decisions are being made fades away. Patriotism fosters a more positive national discourse as opposed to "beer parlor" arguments that don't lead to progress.
  
  Kudos to Budgit's efforts to analyze all that data on government budgets and spending and make it accessible and easy to understand by the ordinary citizen.
• National Defense
  People would rise up to support the preservation of their country. More people would not only be concerned about the carnage going on in some parts of the country but will also think of ways to end it.

A country needs its citizens as much as the citizens need their country.

So I shared this much and wrapped it up. Some day I will share my own list of Nigerians who are making a difference in their own space. No matter what anybody says, we are largely good people! We need more people to rise up so we can have this change we so desperately need.

Here are a few pictures from the event. By the way, I was told this is the research and design laboratory for metallurgical and materials engineering. I entered and was like woooo! Some good progress, working personal computers and air-conditioners. That's like a big deal to me because in my days in unilag, we had no such luxuries.

GOD BLESS NIGERIA!!

Cares Unend - Omotanwa Sulaiman #inthespiritofenterprise

Tell us about yourself

My name is Omotanwa Sulaiman, I am a social entrepreneur. I have a first degree in Business administration after which I trained in the UK as a dental nurse. I am currently running a masters program in Leadership and Management with the university of St. Marks and St. John’s Plymouth, UK.

Tell us about your business

Cares Unend is a social enterprise that is focused on creating dental awareness and support for the general public and dental support for the dental community in Nigeria.

Some of the activities we engage in to promote dental health care in Nigeria are;

- Publish a free magazine under the brand name Erin

- Run radio dental programs Pan- Nigeria

- Hold dental outreach programs in various communities across Nigeria e.g. Schools, Offices, Orphanages, Camps to name a few.

What is the idea behind the name Erin?

Erin means smile in Yoruba, when you smile, you show your teeth (most times). We chose a name that people would associate with Teeth. We also wanted a name that is Nigerian because we are a proudly Nigerian brand.

Here's a cross section of the various editions of the magazine over the years;

(P.S Your's truly is on one of the covers, can you guess which one?)

Erin is published three times a year and distributed for free across Nigeria through Health Plus pharmacies, Glendora bookshops, Terra culture, schools and dental clinics to name a few.

How did you get into this line of business?

As a child, I lost a lot of teeth which could have been saved if I had been more aware about small habits as brushing twice a day, visiting the dentist every 6 months, keeping sweets and snacks to meal times (I’m still a sweet tooth, but a smarter one now). In Nigeria, many of us are dental unaware, a lot of people hardly visit dentists for various reasons such as lack of information on what to do and where to go and cost -many of us believe dental care is too expensive (which isn't always the case if you visit regularly)and unnecessary until there is pain which shouldn't be.

I decided to train as a dental nurse while in the UK a few years ago. On my return to Nigeria, I saw the need and the gap in the dental health sector in creating awareness mainly and I decided to set up a social enterprise to help people by answering their questions, referring them to dentists and provide other dental support services even to the practitioners.

How would you describe social entrepreneurship?

Social entrepreneurship in simple terms is business with a heart. 

What are the main challenges you face and how have you overcome them.

The main challenge is trying to remain sustainable as most of the services are social oriented. For example, we currently print 3000 free copies of the Erin magazine tri-annually, we have been printing erin free for more than 4years and counting; generating funds to maintain the high quality of print has been through adverts.

We have learnt to develop different streams of income to continue to provide dental support to the general public because we know there is a great need out there for solutions to dental problems and because we exist because of that, we have to make it work for the love of making Nigerians’ smile healthy and beautifully too. 

How will you summarize your journey so far?

The journey so far has been very tough but also very fulfilling. From using any revenue from my voice over jobs, loans from family and friends. Seeking and getting in kind donation of technical know how has been very helpful as well in managing the funding challenges. Seeing the smiles on the faces of those you bring dental health to, the special needs children charity we set up, the emails we get, the dental professionals who get support from the running of their business and the support we also enjoy from them and the general public is phenomenal. It is gratifying and humbling to be part of mind set change process regarding dental health habits in Nigeria.

Where do you see Erin in the future?

Erin magazine is one of the ways we employ to create dental awareness in Nigeria, we will continually improve our contents to suit the ever changing needs of Nigerians, increase print run dramatically so more Nigerians can have more access, increase our online presence and continually provide more innovative programs in partnership with dental clinics to make dental health more accessible to Nigerians.

Given another chance, will you do this again

I will do this one million times over without blinking. The fulfillment of bringing smiles to the faces of people all over Nigeria and beyond is priceless. As a dental nurse and a social entrepreneur, helping people sort out their dental issues makes gladdens my heart,and being recognized for it is another. We were made distinguished corporate friends of the NYSC by the then Director General, Major General T.S. Tsiga, I was also a recipient of the Coca Cola Africa Foundation and Africa America Institute Transformational Leadership Programme Scholarship at the Pan African University. These opportunities came because of this path I chose.

So, I will encourage people who are interested in being social entrepreneurs to go for it, being an entrepreneur itself is stressful, being a social entrepreneur can be more stressful but definitely more fulfilling as you will be impacting more people…through employment and through the product or services you offer while you also impact the economy in many ways than one.

Be the best and make someone smile…it could make a world of difference

Giving back this Valentine

Hi guys, this is a bonus post for Kenny Madin!! That's my brother who's now a daddy!! Whoop whoop. At times like this you just remember once again how great God is. Congrats bro!

Meanwhile, since I am posting today, let me put this out before it's too late. If you can come out to support, please do. It's not on your precious Valentine's day so don't panic. :-)

Let's give and support to make a difference

The year can pass many of us by and we never get the chance to give back or touch lives. Since we are all in the mood to give, why not consider giving back to people who really do need it. Our friends at val4kids have put this together and we are fully supporting this initiative and hope that if you can make the time or spare the change, you would too.

On the 15th and 16th of February, Val4kids will be holding events at the ilaje area of Lagos (the slum under the costaine bridge).

Saturday the 15th is a clean up project, they are calling on volunteers to join in the cleaning up of the area; brooms, rakes, bin bags and other cleaning items will be provided.

Sunday, the 16th will be for the distribution of 1000 hygiene kits to the children. There'll also be lots of fun, music, cakes and other items for the kids.

We are looking for volunteers to come out on either or both days as well as sponsors for the kits and goodies. The kits have been estimated at 2000 naira only per child and your contributions would go a long way.

For more information, please contact the following people;

Wande - 08028587497
Kelle - 08034001662
Ibiwunmi -08060197215
Uwa - 08023970412

or add - 75EFCD39

Cheers guys!