Anike Lawal

Anike Lawal awarded first Adara Scholarship for Oxford MBA

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Anike is the founder of Mamalette, a social enterprise that improves health outcomes for pregnant women and young mothers in Africa.

Anike Lawal has been awarded the first Adara Scholarship for the MBA programme at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.

The Scholarship was announced at the School’s annual Oxford Business Forum Africa event and is funded by the Adara Foundation. It is open to female candidates of an African nationality and covers the full MBA programme fee and living expenses.

Anike Lawal is an accomplished consultant as well as the founder of Mamalette – a successful online platform that helps women in Africa through pregnancy and childcare. Mamalette has reached 4 million African parents since its launch in 2013 and the platform encompasses tutorials, expert panels and competitions. It has a thriving online community of over 300,000 followers.

Lawal’s own experience of managing her career alongside childcare were a direct inspiration for the platform. She explained: ‘It was a very new and confusing phase of my life and I found that balancing motherhood with my career was almost impossible. I launched Mamalette to help other mothers in the same situation.’

I brought my consulting experience to bear by doing research in the field and conducting focus groups about how mothers experience the healthcare system.

Anike Lawal, 2019/20 MBA candidate

Once the platform began to flourish, Lawal realised the extent of the challenges that African mothers face during pregnancy and childbirth. ‘One in five children in Nigeria never reach the age of five,’ she said. ‘From my interactions with other mothers I realised this was an area where I could help. I brought my consulting experience to bear by doing research in the field and conducting focus groups about how mothers experience the healthcare system in the country. That allowed me to understand what the problems and issues were and it focused my work towards solving them.’

It was a chance meeting with Oxford alumnus James Steere, Co Founder of I-Drop Water in San Francisco, that put Lawal on the path to Oxford. ‘I was so enthralled by the way he spoke about his business, I-Drop Water which is making safe drinking water affordable and accessible to Africans. I loved the way he talked about the social problem and how he could use business to solve it. I talked to him about my ideas and he said, 'I really think you should apply to the Oxford MBA.'

It was only after her acceptance onto the Oxford MBA that Lawal learned she had been awarded the Adara scholarship. She recalled: ‘I live in Lagos which is notorious for its traffic. When I finally got home, after a very long day, I saw that I had had all these missed calls from Oxford, and I thought “Oh no, what has happened?” When I found out I had been awarded the Scholarship it was a fantastic surprise.’

Lawal continued: ‘I feel really fortunate to be here, because the world is here in Oxford. I’m no longer working in isolation in a small corner of Africa and I can see how to solve social problems through a global lens now.’

Learn more about the Adara Scholarship.