By Ashley Martin | College Assistance Chair/ LI Intern
Dear committed Leadership Initiatives donor,
My name is Ashley and throughout the last year and a half I have worked with the International Business Internship Program and Business Summit to improve communities in Nigeria. I attended the Business Summit this summer in Washington, D.C where my team worked with Muhammad, the owner of an irrigation farm, to solve the business’s major challenges. With the help of my team and many mentors like Simon Limage, Former-Deputy Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation Programs at State Department and Sarah C. Stiles, a professor at Georgetown University, my team and I were able to solve 3 problems facing our partners farm. At the end of the Business Summit, we presented our solutions to a panel of judges which included professionals like Ahmed S. Mohammed, the Director of Talent Acquisition, Dartmouth College and Stella Onuoha, a United States Ambassador.
As a result of your generous donations, the LI team is able to continue helping Nigerian business partners similar to Muhammad and his farm. The farm has been in his family for generations and was recently inherited by Muhammad. With the help of his children, Muhammad is able to run his 1 hectare land focusing on 3 major crops: onions, peppers and casava.
Muhammad’s farm supplies fresh produce to regular customers and additional members of his communities through both a market in Bauchi State and his farm in Wuro Goggo, Nigeria. Muhammad regularly bikes to the popular market in order to sell his produce and to promote his farm. Through these profits he makes each month, he returns the majority back into seeds and other supplies for the farm. Muhammad also uses the revenue to support his multiple children and extended family. This summer, my team and I proposed solutions to address Muhammad’s major problems in order to increase seasonal profits and productivity. As mentioned by our team member Rachel, “this program means more to us than just coming up with solutions, it's about helping Muhammad better support his family”. Nearly 30 people in Wuro Goggo already depend on his farm for food and many more once our approved solutions are implemented.
On behalf of the LI Change family and Muhammad, I would like to thank you for your charitable donations and for giving us the opportunity to assist a growing business. Through your contributions LI will be able to benefit many other businesses similar to Muhammad’s farm and continue to have a positive impact on the surrounding communities. To read about more stories like Muhammad’s, you can access other teams and projects through the new Leadership Initiatives website at liempower.org.
Sincerely,
The Leadership Initiative Team
Links:
By Marshall Bailly | Director of Operations
By Mohammed Auwal Yakubu | Assistant Director of Business Program - Nigeria
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