Our Story

Santa Fair is an annual trade Fair borne by SANTA FAIR AFRIQUE duly registered with the corporate affairs commission and has been operational in South-East Nigeria, so far.

The Santa Fair Afrique brand was born out of the need to provide branding, awareness, and sales platform for women-owned businesses and by so doing address one of the structural drivers of gender inequality, which is economic empowerment.

This business exhibition which turned into a movement of mass sales for the women-owned business is positioned to plug into the untapped economic force in African female entrepreneurship. The idea is to take advantage of the power of collaboration and leverage functional networks and other pro-SME platforms to drive economic growth

In 2018, three women who owned small businesses synergized to make more sales and gain visibility by leveraging each other’s network. Realizing the need for visibility as a factor for business growth, Santa Fair Afrique was borne as a result, to not only serve an immediate purpose but extensively broaden the vision to reach out to more women-owned SMEs.

This vision has been vigorously driven since then for four times in four consecutive years, to see women-owned businesses gain visibility and attract maximum sales. In the process, over 3,000 women-owned businesses have benefited from the Santa Fair Afrique movement.

As such, SANTA FAIR AFRIQUE provides women-owned SMEs with the strategy & visibility they need to compete in the African market – one of the largest markets in the world.

Fortunately for us, the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development office (FCDO), South-East Regional office in Enugu has been providing technical assistance to Santa Fair Afrique as part of her women’s development mandate.

For 4 years and counting, Santa fair has been able to give women a platform to network across their communities and sphere of influence and we are ready to do more this year at Santa Fair 5.0 (The Business carnival), with your support.

Our leaning is following the trajectory of Africa’s economic evolution and indeed Nigeria’s re-emergence as a beacon of hope, with Nigerian female entrepreneurs playing an active role in the whole process

Our Vision

To Empower women-owned SMEs, to compete in the global Market.

Mission

To Build a community of women-owned SMEs, by promoting healthy competition, growth, and confidence.

Aims/Objective

Increase visibility for women-owned SMEs, through trade fairs and exhibitions.

Create a platform for stay-at-home moms to launch their businesses

Launch virtual and physical commerce platforms

Train women-owned SMEs on business strategies

Meet Our Team Leads

Agbai Chinemerem

Executive Director

A leadership fanatic, who is passionate about helping enterprising women achieve their life goals, she runs Upsurge, a mentorship platform for single ladies, where she assists them to develop a passion for building and sustaining enterprises. She organizes goal-setting classes at the beginning of every year to help women achieve more.

She founded and runs the quintessential Haney House Couture, a clothing line that has been for seven years now, and Haney Zobo, a healthy organic beverage brand.

She is currently the team lead for Santa Fair Afrique, where she has provided excellent leadership for the team and successfully provided branding and sales support for over 3000 female business owners who have come in contact with Santa Fair. She is also an administrator for an arm of the Golden Heart Foundation a Christian organization existing to raise leaders that transform society.

She is a trained and certified Human Resource Manager, Project Manager, and Customer Relationship Manager all from the Chartered Institute of Customer Relations, Nigeria. She has a B.sc in Education Biology from Abia State University in Uturu, Nigeria. completed a course in Broadcasting at the Nigerian Broadcast Academy, and has certifications in Leadership courses from Daystar Leadership Academy, and Dominion Leadership Institute, and completed her Digital Marketing course with FATE Foundation.

Chinasa Aniagolu

Head Of Administration

A serial entrepreneur, and an awesome team player with Santa Fair Afrique, She is passionate about young married and unmarried ladies, which is why she runs a weekly mentorship program called “Dee Pearls” where she trains and mentors them.

She holds a B.sc in Psychology from Enugu State University of Science and Technology. She has gone through series of leadership training with Golden Heart Foundation, the school of National transformation, and other online leadership master classes, marketing training from Chioma Business School, Naija brandchic, Emeka Nobis, and many more.

One-time Manager of Shalom World bookshop, One-time Marketer for Safe-haven Technologies Limited, and One-time lead Marketer for Rehoboth Ideal-Tech Limited, she is the founder of Linaz Concepts, which majors in children’s wear and essentials from 0 to 16 years.

She is also the founder of Linaz Wash, a fast-growing cleaning agents company that produces cleaning agents and Hair Care Essentials. She is married to Aniagolu Chukwuka and they are blessed with two beautiful girls.

Njideka Okwuma

Head Of Operations

A self-driven innovator, serial entrepreneur, and teens coach, she is a great team player with Santa fair Afrique management team. An effective communicator, motivator, and relentless optimist, she is passionate about positive change in young women and the girl child and runs a 1000 girls project, an NGO that trains young girls and stay-at-home moms in rural areas and has reached over 2000 ladies in 14 communities!

A facilitator with Damsel of Virtue Foundation for over a decade, a lifelong learner committed to staying on top of the best emerging business practices. She holds a B.sc in Estate Management, An Associate of the Nigerian Institute of Estate Surveyors and Valuers She has attended Leadership training with Golden Heart Foundation School of National Transformation, Leap Africa, FATE FOUNDATION FACEBOOK NIGERIA, and Many Online Leadership and business courses.

A One-time Coordinator of Hype Foundation Southeast and the National Leader with Hype Foundation Nigeria. She is the Founder of Shop4fresh a fast-growing foodstuff supply chain in the Southeast (Shop4fresh/online), former Marketing Executive at Sunrise FM, Resident Surveyor at the Best Shelters Estate Company and Teens Pastor with Dominion City Enugu.

Our Rationale

According to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report, that was published in 2018 “Women’s formal ownership of SMEs stood at around a third of all registered SMEs in Africa, and women-owned SMEs are more likely to have lower sales and annual turnover, fewer employees, and smaller size than those enterprises owned by men.”

Santa Fair Afrique is positioned to contribute actively towards bridging this gap.

Many women, especially in this part of Africa struggle with issues, including limited and or inadequate formal education, gender discrimination, lack of fiscal resources and book-keeping skills, male domination, control, and marginalization, generated by social structures that deny women ownership of a much-enabling environment.

Based on our aims and objectives, we are positioned to serve as a socio-economic succor point for thousands of women in business.

The role of caregiving as well as homemaking, which is a cultural pride to Africans is fast being fiercely challenged by economic hardship. Hence, the urgency is to provide women in business with a platform that creates an inflow of sales, thereby making economic empowerment available to them.