Not a workshop.
A complete pathway.
EmpowerHer Future is the Ese-Tonia Foundation's vocational training and economic empowerment programme for widows. It was built around a simple truth: widows across Nigeria are not short of drive, resilience, or household responsibility.
What they are short of is access to structured training, real mentorship, startup support, and a network that stays with them after the training room empties.
EmpowerHer Future fills that gap, not with a one-off workshop, not with a certificate that collects dust, but with a complete, multi-phase pathway that walks a widow from her first day of skills training all the way to running her own business, into a community of women who keep each other accountable long after graduation.
EmpowerHer Future is for widows managing households and families alone, women who are ready to work and need one structured opportunity to do it.
Widows managing households and families alone after the loss of a spouse
Women who are unemployed or underemployed with no clear income pathway
Women from economically disadvantaged backgrounds with no access to training
Female-led households where children's welfare depends entirely on the mother's earnings
Women who already have skills but lack the business knowledge to turn them into income
Each cohort runs approximately 30 women · Selected via structured needs assessment
From enrolment to economic independence
Every beneficiary moves through a structured, monitored progression across six phases, designed so no woman falls through a gap between training and sustained income.
Needs Assessment & Beneficiary Selection
A structured assessment evaluates commitment, economic need, and readiness before any curriculum is written. The assessment shapes everything that follows, it determines training tracks, sets selection criteria, and treats beneficiaries as capable women denied access to opportunity, not ability.
Vocational Skills Training
Hands-on training across professional tracks delivered by expert training partners selected for market credibility. Sessions run in classrooms, studios, kitchens, and workspaces designed to mirror the real professional environments beneficiaries will enter.
Mentorship & Personal Development
Confidence-building, communication skills, financial awareness, and professional engagement. Trainers and facilitators guide beneficiaries beyond technical skill, to a visible change in how each woman sees her own future.
Internship & Workplace Placement
Graduates are placed with confirmed internship organisations, gaining real-world experience, professional networks, and employment pathways before launching independently.
Entrepreneurship & Business Development
Startup support, business planning, pricing strategy, customer management, and access to the tools needed to launch and sustain an independent income-generating business.
The Champions Programme
Post-graduation monitoring, transition support, business development assistance, the Champions Circle alumni network, and the Champions Ambassador system, ensuring no graduate navigates her post-training journey alone.
Income generation has already begun
Three months in and the programme is ahead of where it was expected to be. Several beneficiaries are already generating income, before their programme has even concluded.
Real orders, real income
Three beneficiaries in the Baking and Catering track have started receiving food orders from within their community, before their programme has even concluded.
Business skills in practice
Trainees are pricing, managing customer expectations, and handling real orders independently. Business knowledge is being applied, not just learned.
3,000+ campaign impressions
The Digital Marketing trainee achieved over 3,000 impressions in a live campaign run as part of her training, a real result with a real audience.
Community-built customer base
Beneficiaries are gaining initial customers through referrals and community networks, without any external marketing support from the foundation.
The Champions
Programme
Completing a training programme is a beginning, not an ending. The Champions Programme is EmpowerHer Future's answer to what comes after, the component that transforms the programme from a training initiative into a lasting empowerment system.
The foundation understands what breaks the cycle of progress for women after training ends: motivation fades, skills remain unused, startup capital never comes, customers never materialise. Without support, accountability, and ongoing guidance, even the most capable graduate can fall back into economic vulnerability within months.
The Champions Programme was designed to close every one of those gaps.
Women trained, supporting the women being trained
Outstanding graduates are identified and developed as Champions Ambassadors, women who have completed training, built their businesses, and are now ready to give back. This is the cycle EmpowerHer Future is designed to create, growing not just through outside help but through the community it has already built.
Internship Monitoring
Active tracking and support during workplace placements to ensure graduates are integrating, learning, and protected in real professional environments.
Transition Support
Dedicated guidance as graduates move from training into their first independent income-generating activities, with accountability check-ins and problem-solving support.
Business Development Support
Access to startup tools, business planning guidance, pricing support, and connections to networks and funding opportunities to help each graduate sustain and grow.
The Champions Circle
Every graduate of EmpowerHer Future becomes a member of the Champions Circle, an alumni community and accountability network created to ensure that no graduate navigates her post-training journey alone. Members keep each other accountable, share opportunities, and build the collective economic power the programme is designed to create.
Partner with EmpowerHer Future
EmpowerHer Future is made possible through the commitment of partners who believe that women deserve access to opportunity, not just goodwill. We welcome partnerships from corporate organisations, foundations, NGOs, government agencies, development finance institutions, and individuals.
Internship & Placement
Open your organisation's doors to EmpowerHer graduates for real workplace experience and employment pathways.
Training Expertise
Share your team's professional skills by leading a workshop or teaching a vocational module for a training cohort.
Business Mentorship
Guide graduates launching businesses with mentorship, business planning advice, and market access through the Champions Programme.
Networks & Advocacy
Open your networks, amplify the programme, and connect graduates to employers, customers, and opportunities.
CSR & Brand Partnership
Align your brand with a credible, impactful programme reaching vulnerable women in Lagos, with measurable, reported outcomes.
Employment Pathways
Commit to interviewing or hiring EmpowerHer graduates, turning completed training into steady, dignified work.
Behind every woman in EmpowerHer Future is a decision someone made.
That decision could be yours.
That decision could be yours. Whether you are a corporation looking for a credible CSR partner, a professional willing to mentor or teach, or an organisation ready to open your doors to an EmpowerHer graduate for an internship, there is a role for you in this work.