The President of Ascend Studios Foundation, Inya Lawal in a recent conversation with press members shared some of the future trajectories for the organization. One of the main objectives of the Foundation is that they seek ways to identify, build and bring visibility to African women and youth by offering training and unleashing their entrepreneurial and leadership potentials.
In a bid to transform the underutilization of women and youth entrepreneurship especially in the media space, the challenges these groups face, caused by many actions in the society were highlighted. Inya Lawal, speaking on why it’s important to continue pushing this initiative, she said “when women are empowered, their productivity increases and this can create a ripple effect in the economy as there is basically an expansion in our economy because they will definitely spread this down to others especially the youths”.
Since its inception in 2019, Ascend Studios Foundation has empowered 1500 persons including 500 youth from the organization’s empowerment programs and grants. The trajectory now is to reach 2000 persons by the close of 2021 and to have positively impacted 5000 persons by the end of 2022.
She further revealed that the organization has a series of activities lined up till 2022 to facilitate the goals of women and youth empowerment. The empowerment of returned migrants is also a very paramount agenda to accomplish, with the help of stakeholders, to achieve the vision they have for 2022.
Answering one of the frequently asked questions by members of the press, which is what makes their foundation stand out, Inya Lawal replied, “for every plan, we always have a midline assessment of how well the women have improved with the funds available to them and with companies, brands seeing this, more will want to continue to invest in these women and youths. Our programs are well structured with proper sustainability plans and I believe we are here to stay in the long term”.
For more information, please visit https://ascendstudiosfoundation.org/ or email Adeola; adeola@ascendss.com
