‘I’ve been a strong advocate of women empowerment and wealth creation’ – Guardian Nigeria

Adeola Rachael Agbana is the CEO, Allured By Ruby Online Crafts Academy birthed to fill a skill gap amongst fashion creatives. Agbana is a graduate of Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, an alumnus of the Leading Ladies Business Institute (LLBI) and also an undergraduate of Psychology at the Lagos State University, Ojo. With a strong drive to impart knowledge, her creative skills, has enabled her train and mentor over 13,000 women through this platform. She is a fashionpreneur on a mission to provide women in Africa and beyond with millinery products and headwear training, help master the skill and transit them into generating sustainable income from their products, expertise and experience. In this interview with IJEOMA THOMAS-ODIA, she shares her passion for impacting women.

What inspired your passion for craft?CRAFT has always been innate for me. Though I didnt have the opportunity very early to express it, there came a time after marriage that I was bored and the only thing I could think of was to decorate the entire house with wall paintings and DIY interior decoration fittings.

Afterwards, I began making fabric flowers, bowties, lapel pins and hair ruffles. At some point, I wanted more and decided to try out headwear making by watching YouTube videos and taking foreign online courses.

At what point did you decide to set up the academy? I actually began with a Facebook group in 2019, where I usually post pictorial illustrations of how to make different types of headwears. As time progressed and the group membership rose to over 30,000 creatives, I began to get requests for tutorial videos, this was how I began the Allured by Ruby Headwear academy online via WhatsApp.

Due to increasing requests of some categories of people who preferred the physical learning option, setting up a physical academy became inevitable and this was realised in June 2020, shortly after the government lifted COVID-19 lockdown.

Are there experiences during your growing up years that influenced your decision to embrace craft? Growing up, I recall seeing women around me struggling to balance their time in paid jobs and family life. I disliked it and I knew from that time it wouldnt be a thing for me. Also, Ive always wanted to be an entrepreneur, working with my hands and being in control of my earnings and life generally.

What has been the impact of the academy so far? It has been good so far by the grace of God. In just a year, despite the harsh economic conditions, we have successfully graduated four batches and over 20 students. The online academy has been more impactful due to its ease of accessibility from anywhere in the world.

In an economy where white-collar jobs do not come by easily, how are you motivating women to embrace this craft? I have been a very strong advocate of women empowerment and wealth creation, so through the academy, we have been at the forefront of encouraging and inspiring women between the ages of 18 to 55 to take up interest in headwear making, because it enables them generate income right from the comfort of their homes with very little startup capital.

All you need to start is the skill acquisition, which we provide on many fronts via our free and paid classes physically and online at a very affordable fee. I also try as much as I can to reassure enthusiasts who want to consider the headwear making business that it has an appreciable profit margin if you are ready to put in the work and master the craft by constantly upgrading yourself.

How have you been able to combine work and running family, and how supportive have they been? The role a solid support system plays in the self-actualisation of your dreams, especially family women, cannot be over-emphasised. It has been one of the critical success factors that have brought me this far. My ability to combine business, running my family and a full time study has been solely because I have a very supportive spouse who is patient, understanding, and believes in my dreams and my vision as well.

A lot of women battle with combining family life and career, what is your advice to them? I strongly advice seeking the support of your spouse, because it plays a vital role in solidifying your support system, because without that in place, the journey will be a very stressful one. When starting out, I faced several challenges, but over time, I was able to learn effective time management and work-life balance strategies which led to putting together a very dedicated team of tutors, employing a personal assistant and a social media manager such that Im able to delegate certain critical tasks. So, my advice to women out there is to seek help early, learn to delegate because you alone cannot do everything.

Financial independence is one thing a lot of women still battle with, how would you encourage them to live above this? Attaining financial independence for most Nigerians is a near impossible task considering the high rate of poverty in the country. However, it is a feat worth trying to accomplish. Even if you are starting small, the important thing is to get started.

One of the paths I usually propose women pursue towards this is getting legitimate multiple streams of income and this is where headwear making comes in. It is craft that is both lucrative and scalable; you can generate money from several aspects of the business.

What is your life philosophy? Go hard or go home! It is one thing to desire something; it is also another thing to be willing to do what it takes to get it done. One of the reasons I have come this far is by not giving excuses even though sometimes they may be legitimate, I still choose to find a way around it because where there is a will, there is way.

Read more:

'I've been a strong advocate of women empowerment and wealth creation' - Guardian Nigeria