Jacqueline Nyikwagh made a difficult choice; she loved doing business but decided to start a family on time and raise her children to the point that they are weaned to minimal independence, then she could get back to business. “I had to wait till my children grow older so that I will not be distracted in my business; my youngest son is 13. I am now focused fully on my business”, she said.
Jacqueline is a graduate of Sociology; she still wished for a job in the social sector: “I still really desire to work in the social humanitarian sector, I love seeing people being happy, I love providing humanitarian services to people” At the moment she is in the fashion business: “I design and make clothe” She began the fashion business after trying several times to get a job: “After getting tired of looking for a job and the embarrassment that comes with the search; people will ask to be paid to get the job appointment, some men will want to go out with you on a date, I just got tired and decided it was time to work for myself”, so she did.
“I enrolled for 3 months in a fashion school, but I didn’t complete it, I did it for just one month and went straight to my business, I had learned enough to start” added to her clothing-making business, she also imported clothes anytime she travelled abroad. Business was good; life was good for Jacqueline until 2019.
“I had so much hope for a bigger business in 2019, I had big plans and never thought anything could stop my goal” Jacqueline had made orders for custom clothing; she had a special design and was planning on her own label: “Then COVID-19 showed up to disrupt everything. “I stopped importation when COVID-19 struck, business went down, my staffs were very discouraged, and some of them went back to their villages and still never returned. I miss the productivity of my staff”
When she could no longer import; she began to re-invent her business: “At that point when I couldn’t import again, I decided to be making my design with Nigerian attire. People liked it and moved from importing to focusing on how to town local attires into something universally acceptable fashion” she said.
The innovation was the good that came as a result of COVID-19; it has helped to scale her business. “I am still recovering from COVID-19; I lost my customers, some had it so bad; no assistant from anyone, we were just trying to support one another with whatever we had, I don’t know anyone that got any support from the government during the time of COVID; people are so affected they still don’t think of what to wear but food to eat” she observed.
