Wednesday, 15 July 2015

SSEDC TESTIMONIAL: BRIDGET IKEM – BG SKINCARE SPA & SALOON SERVICE



For a first time visitor, you will be forgiven if you mistake her for the Spa attendant due to her petite frame and ever smiling face. Welcome to the interesting world of Bridget Ikem of BG Skin Care Spa & Saloon Service located at Calabar. Bridget’s passion in skincare started right from University of Calabar during her school days where she took a consultancy course. In 2010 after her studies, she traveled to Lagos to continue with her passion but soon discovered that daily life in Lagos was tough and too demanding. She got a job at Niger Insurance Company in other to support her financially but this she could not sustain for long as she was unable to meet target set for her by her employers. And soon she was out of job, but her early passion for beauty and skincare kept burning in her and she enrolled at Opral Benson School Yaba, where she graduated in December 2012 with 3 awards. And immediately set out to open her own Spa shop but this proved harder than she thought as the cost of renting and equipping a shop in Lagos was high. But rather than deter her, she spent another 6 months working for Body Beautiful Day Spa at Allen, Ikeja. - “I remember going to work on an empty stomach and under rain in Lagos all to acquire skills”. But the big breakthrough didn’t come till 2014, she had lost her Dad and came back to Cross River for the burial and was told about SSEDC entrepreneurship program by her brother. She registered for the program same year and the rest is history. Today, she has her own therapy shop fully equipped here in Calabar and plans to expand to other locations soon. Her long term dream is to build a beauty school that will train 500 young person with scholarship for those that can’t afford it. In her words “It is not always easy to start but if you wait for everything to fall into place before starting then you may have to wait forever. I learnt this hard truth during the program at SSEDC”.
We are motivated by how much ground we’ve been able to cover, and are gung ho about the second half of the year. The SSEDC sets the trend and blazes the trail forward.

why we do what we do...

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