Ronan Przydzielski
My Business Training
Comfort Nanlock
About Comfort Nanlock
Comfort Stephen is a skilled hairstylist and aspiring entrepreneur from Guru, Bauchi State. Originally from Langtang North, Plateau State, she began styling hair after secondary school due to financial hardship. Her talent earned her an apprenticeship, where she mastered hair care, braiding, nails, and makeup over two years.
Now a single mother living with her parents, who sell household goods, Comfort dreams of opening her own salon to gain financial independence and support her daughter’s education. Through a partnership with Leadership Initiatives, she hopes to overcome current challenges, build a successful business, and empower women in her community.
Comfort Nanlock
Business Goals
At the heart of Comfort Stephen’s vision is the desire to build a welcoming, modern hair salon where beauty meets empowerment. Her dream is not only to style hair but to create a space that fosters confidence, financial freedom, and personal growth.
She envisions a clean, vibrant salon with dedicated areas for braiding, makeup, nails, and product displays. Clients will enjoy professional care, friendly service, and a warm atmosphere.
Beyond beauty services, Comfort plans to sell hair products, expand her skills through further education, and eventually move into her own home to create stability and a brighter future for her daughter.
Comfort Nanlock
Obstacles
Throughout her journey, Comfort Stephen has faced significant challenges. Growing up in a low-income household, her parents struggled to meet basic needs. After secondary school, financial hardship prevented her from continuing her education.
Her situation became more difficult when she became a single mother without support from her child’s father. These obstacles, however, have not diminished her determination.
Partnering with Leadership Initiatives is a turning point for Comfort. She is eager to learn business management, improve her financial literacy, and receive mentorship. Her ultimate goal is to overcome these challenges and inspire other young women facing similar struggles.
Comfort Nanlock
Our Partnership
Comfort is seeking support from Leadership Initiatives through funding, mentorship, and access to essential business tools to help her launch her own salon. Her goal is to create a stable source of income, build a loyal client base, and move her family into a safer, more comfortable home.
She hopes to establish a sustainable business that allows her to support her daughter’s education, cover unexpected expenses, and achieve financial independence.
Beyond her personal goals, Comfort wants to inspire and empower other young women in her community by showing that, with hard work and the right support, success is possible despite hardship.
My Grant Proposal Presentation
As part of the International Leadership and Business Internship, I collaborated with top development experts to help grow and strengthen my business partner’s brand.
At the end of the program, my team presented our final proposal to a panel of judges from the Leadership Initiatives Grant Committee. This formal pitch allowed us to apply our entrepreneurial skills, showcase our strategic plan, and advocate for meaningful change in our partner’s business.
Our team was awarded a grant that will fund the implementation of our business partner’s plan, providing life-changing support that will expand operations, improve financial stability, and create new growth opportunities. Over the next year, this grant will help transform the future of their business and improve the quality of life for both the entrepreneur and their community.
My Grant Proposal
“ComforGlam”, Comfort’s salon, stands out from other salons because of its wide variety of services, loyal clientele, and strategic store placement. Our infrastructure team conducted a thorough evaluation of her salon’s finances. This allows Comfort to stand apart from her competitors, through the implementation of our strategic long term investments, providing her with the ability to be sustainable longer than other salons around her.
What sets “ComforGlam” apart is Comfort’s care for her costumer. She shows this by providing a welcoming environment with cold drinks, cool air from fans, and reliable service. A big difference from her and other stylists is how she gives discounts to college students showing her care for her community. We presented this idea as a good way for marketing and to help the community and Comfort jumped on board. We have advertised all of this with posters, business card, etc. Our tagline shows this the most with it being ““Comfort. Care. Confidence.” which represents everything the business stand for.
Comfort’s aspiration for “ComforGlam” is to perform her services in a welcoming, connective environment where women in the town of Bauchi, Nigeria can feel confident and proud of who they are. As a single mother, she envisions that this business will give her financial freedom, ensuring that her daughter can live a comfortable life. She also wishes to provide her with higher education. Comfort wants her salon to be a place where women can socially interact and have a pleasant experience. Wanting to balance work, costs, and passion, she ultimately strives to achieve financial stability while offering affordable services as a luxurious experience.
Internship Highlights
Our team began the business development process by having a one-on-one Zoom call directly with our business partner, Comfort Nanlock, and our Nigerian project coordinator to ensure productive collaboration.
We learned more about their life, family, and desires for the proposed business venture, as well as the challenges they were facing. By discussing first-hand the challenges our partner faced, our team successfully and efficiently began to brainstorm solutions to launch her business.
Each morning we held constructive discussions about our ideas, the advice we received the day before, and the timeline necessary to begin implementing our ideas in real-time.
The on-staff project coordinators and business development experts helped facilitate the ideation process and ensured our team asked the right questions to produce tangible results.
I had the unique opportunity to visit the Egyptian Embassy, where I learned about diplomatic relations between Egypt and the United States.
The embassy serves as a hub for collaboration with partner countries and international organizations, which facilitates the creation of solutions to address global issues, such as poverty, gender inequality, and climate change.
Egyptian diplomats and officials work closely with local communities to identify needs and design programs that empower individuals and enhance overall societal well-being. This community-centered problem-solving is something my team and I aspired towards while crafting our business proposal.
I also visited the Embassy of Chad to learn about the role that Chad plays in domestic and international development work. We discussed critical topics including investments, international trade, and human rights.
While touring the embassy, I learned about the wide range of policy issues and gained a better understanding of the embassy’s role in international development through sustainable and inclusive initiatives.
My visit to the Embassy of Chad was not only educational, but inspiring. It allowed me to see Chad’s pivotal role in advancing international development and how I can implement their ideals into my own work.
Our team met with leading experts in the fields of business and economic development from Johns Hopkins University, the State Department, and GlobalGiving.
One such expert was Carla Brooks, Business and Development Officer at Johns Hopkins Center for Communications Program. She provided us with a crash course in advertising and marketing, in which we learned essential components of an effective marketing campaign.
Our work with Ms. Brooks was essential in preparing us for our culminating pitch deck presentation. With her and other expert guidance, we streamlined our initial ideas to further our efforts in launching the venture our business partner envisioned.
By the end of the week, we had incorporated the advice of leading experts from across the globe for our business proposal to empower and transform the life of our business partner.