By Maria Famakinwa

Acquiring acceptable level of  education, marrying a spouse who believes in one’s dreams, and effective family planning mechanism have been identified as prerequisites for women to achieve work-life balance.

This was the statement made by the First Lady of Ondo State, Chief Betty Anyanwu-Akeredolu, while speaking on ‘Work-life Balance: Succeeding in All’, at the Women in Business Summit, held in Akure, the State Capital.

Mrs Akeredolu who defined work-life Balance as an ability to distribute time between work, family and personal life without one affecting the other, bemoaned the man-made sociocultural prejudices that had, overtime taken the shape of anti-women traditions.

“In achieving work-life balance, a whole lot depends on self-identification and the personality of the partner a woman chooses for herself.  Tough as the society makes it for woman, the person of her partner can make a whole difference in her strife for balance, and this requires that we become deliberate about our choices,” she said .

For a woman not to be perpetually dependent , the Ondo First Lady advised starting with a small business in a situation where white collar job is not available. “I have said this for the umpteenth time that women do not have to wait until they are rich enough to establish an industry before they can do business.  You can start small businesses to make a living and support your husbands in the running of the home front. And you can be sure that this would at least give you a level of respect and self worth”,  she added.

Reiterating her commitment to the development and advancement of socioeconomic status of women, the Ondo First Lady narrated how she took a bold step to form Foundation for Wives of Ondo State Officials and Female Political Appointees, FOWOSO, in 2017 as a platform to empower women through skills acquisition.

She commended the organisers of the summit for encouraging entrepreneurship , noting that opportunities abound in Nigeria if  youths could tap into them rather than running out of the country in search of a greener pasture.