Solange Mèhou Houédanou, 47, a businesswoman elected to parliament in February 2023, is a member of the Benin Chamber of Commerce and Industry and an ambassador for the SWEDD project’s Stronger Together campaign. In 2016 she founded the Union des femmes entreprenantes et solidaires du Bénin (UFES-Bénin), an NGO that provides training for women planning to set up small businesses, and in 2018 she launched an agrifood processing company that employs around 60 women.

As director of Sol des Anges, the company she founded in 1999, Solange imports frozen poultry and fish, vegetable oils and other foodstuffs. She has gradually built up a national distribution network, establishing herself as a successful woman in the private sector. “I ask men to free women and to place trust in them” Wanting to share her experience and to promote women’s empowerment, in 2016 she founded the NGO UFES-Bénin in her commune of Allada, located in the department of Atlantique in the south of the country. Her aim is to help women that want to set up SMEs.

“Today, the organization brings together more than 720 women, who receive advice on entrepreneurship, mostly in trade and crafts. We help them to access finance through banks, NGOs, development partners, microfinance organizations and mutual aid.” Women’s empowerment is close to her heart for three reasons, she explains: “I ask men to free women and to place trust in them so they can contribute to the family economy, the household’s needs. The emancipation of women is an important issue that still needs to be fought for. Lastly, I’d like to share my experience to help women grow and develop.”

With this in mind, in 2018 she launched Sol des Anges Agro Business, a local food processing company. “This company employs around 60 women to farm poultry and make pineapple juice. They are trained and their salaries enable them to save up to become self-sufficient, and replicate the model for themselves.” She was elected Member of Parliament in the legislative elections in her constituency in January 2023, after campaigning, in part, on women and their place in society. “We’re going to work on laws to protect women and adolescents, and prioritize keeping girls in school,” she assures us.

“Many of them are discouraged from studying during the school year, by adults and sometimes their own teachers.” Her message: “A woman can make something with her hands and contribute not only to her family’s needs, but also to the local and national economy. There is a place for us and we have to organize ourselves to earn it.”