Meet the Lady Behind the Initiative Empowering Women in Business

Sharon lumbasi is the founding member of ‘Biashara Dada Initiative’ a community based organization that was formed to empower women in business economically and also to help them access information concerning business and mentorship.

At first since she was passionate about business and empowering women through social media so she thought of starting something but dint have the know how to go about it.

She then began her research on the Internet in order to see what other people were doing and how they were going about it.

She opened a Facebook page and called it ‘Mumpreneurs’, invited people to like and share the ideas with others.

“I was just testing the waters with the project and what I discovered from what people shared is that women really needed information about business, how they can grow it and basically where they could do marketing for their products at affordable rates. ” she begins.

Together with 8 other like-minded and empowered women she had interacted with organized for a meeting, which was to help them interact and share their business contacts.

Since she is also a social media marketer she decided to register the business and start working from there but unfortunately another group had already registered under the same name.

This then led to the formation of ‘Mama Biashara Network’ group just with the same agenda. Not long through the network on social media she came across another group of women who had the same vision like hers of empowering women in business.

“Through networking and sharing of my ideas I met other women who shared the same vision as I and were so passionate about doing business and there we formed ‘Biashara Dada Initiative’ that is up and running to day.” Said the 33 year old.

The groups’ vision expanded as they put their minds together as they just dint want to deal with women alone but also gear girls in schools in the entrepreneurship direction through the program ‘Hamasisha Dada’ that will commence in January.

The agenda here as she tells me is to go round in girls schools to mentor them into the direction of entrepreneurship after they are through with their education so that the society can have as many women as possible empowered to do business to reduce the hitch of unemployment.

“Members of the Biashara Dada will be able to pair the girls in groups each with successful women in various sectors who will provide emotional support and ethical guidance along with career advice and networking opportunities. The sessions will enable the scholars to begin to personalize success and imagine themselves with the capability to accomplish their dreams just like their mentors. “Explained Sharon.

Two is to provide solutions in terms of information to women who want to start or are already in business to help them expand their businesses and beside that also get access to finances.

“Since the Biashara Dada Initiative begun early this year we have been able to breakthrough in terms of access to information for business, the group has also grown in terms of membership and also access to finance where members are able to get loans from the initiative through table banking” she said.

The table-banking product, which they call ‘Imarisha Akiba’, which is the first phase of Biashara Dada Initiative is a product that the group is boasting of since the members are able to table their monthly contributions that initially was ranging from 300-5000 shillings depending on ones financial growth and strength.  

Sharon says that each member used to chuck out the amount each of them could afford but then it looked unfair so for equity purposes and since loans were involved too, it was only fair for the group to standardize the amount to 1000 shillings each month from each member.

“Access to finances is a challenge that women who want to begin businesses or are in the process of growing their businesses hardly get through easily. Online businesses are termed risky and it’s not easy for one who is interested in that kind of business to get a loan from the government or a bank.” Says Sharon.

This therefore pushed ‘Biashara Dada Initiative’ into considering such issues that are uncounted with women in business by helping themselves through loaning one another from their own savings.  

On the digital platform that has been kept active and vibrant and has almost 3000 members, any one is sure of getting advice and ideas on any questions they post about business.

The ‘Biashara Dada Initiative’ is looking forward to registering a Sacco to add more products to its organization so that the members and other people who would like to join can have a variety of products to choose from and work with.

Further ‘Biashara Dada Initiative’ also offers consultancy in business that gives direction to women who would like to start a business or are looking forward to expanding it.

“From my experience of having an idea but not knowing where to start from something that pushed me to go online and do a lot of research, I realized how difficult it can be and most people would not want to go through the same process. Therefore we offer business consultancy in our initiative where interested women can come to us and get guidance from the successful businesses some members already have which we use as case study.” Said Sharon.

Biashara Dada memb