John-David (JD) Lim
My Business Training
Salamatu Muhammad
About Salamatu
Salamatu Muhammad, lovingly known as Maman Farare, is a devoted grandmother and entrepreneur in Gida Dubu whose life reflects perseverance, compassion, and service.
For over ten years, she has operated a small provision shop from a room in her home, supplying staple goods to her neighbors. Her dream is to open a fully equipped provision store that provides a calm, welcoming space for families to find daily essentials.
To Salamatu, this business is more than income. It symbolizes stability for her grandchildren, growth for her family, and a hopeful future shaped by years of hard work and care.
Salamatu Muhammad
Business Goals
Salamatu Muhammad, known as Maman Farare, runs her business with honesty, reliability, and compassion. She dreams of growing Maman Farare Provision Shop into a space where customers feel truly cared for and their needs consistently met.
Her vision includes installing a freezer and generator to offer cold drinks and ensure dependable service. Stocking groceries, snacks, beverages, and household items, the shop will be a reliable resource for families in her neighborhood.
Beyond profit, Salamatu’s goal is to honor her late son, support her grandchildren, and create a business that uplifts others through trust, service, and opportunity.
Salamatu Muhammad
Obstacles
With over eleven years of experience, Salamatu Muhammad has developed strong business instincts through daily practice and lessons from her mother. She understands customer needs, manages finances with her son's help, and enjoys stocking quality goods.
However, limited capital remains her greatest challenge. Most of her income goes toward family expenses, leaving little for business growth. Her shop operates from a single room with no refrigeration or generator, restricting her ability to meet demand.
Despite competition from larger stores, Salamatu remains determined. She believes that with proper tools and training, she can build a thriving, professional business.
Salamatu Muhammad
Our Partnership
Salamatu seeks support from Leadership Initiatives to access essential tools and knowledge to grow her business. She needs a deep freezer, reliable generator, and seed capital to restock and relocate her shop to a busier, more visible area.
She also desires mentorship in business management, marketing, and financial tracking to improve her skills beyond basic record keeping. Salamatu is confident that with this partnership, she can build a stable, impactful enterprise.
Her goals include securing her family’s future, supporting education, saving to buy land, and creating jobs for local youth, making her shop a beacon of hope in the community.
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 infrastructure.
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
Throughout the program, we worked closely with Salamatu Muhammad to gain a clear understanding of their business goals. Though Salamatu has leveraged their skills and years of experience to create their business, they face obstacles hindering the expansion of their work.
Guided by their vision, we crafted a proposal detailing the infrastructure materials that would support the growth of their business. We devised a plan that would allow Salamatu to optimize their business through a new budget and financial tracking system.
This new budget enables Salamatu to allocate funds toward essential materials and equipment, supporting the optimization of their services. Effective financial tracking will be crucial for managing growing profits and preserving assets, ensuring the business’s long-term growth and stability.
Internship Highlights
Our business development journey began with a one-on-one Zoom meeting with our partner, Salamatu Muhammad, and our Nigerian project coordinator. This initial conversation laid the foundation for strong collaboration and helped us better understand Salamatu’s background, family, goals for the business, and the specific challenges they were facing.
Hearing directly from Salamatu gave us the insight we needed to begin brainstorming practical, personalized solutions. Each morning, our team held focused discussions to refine our ideas, reflect on expert advice from the day before, and adjust our timeline to move our plans forward efficiently.
Throughout the process, on-staff project coordinators and business development experts guided us, helping us ask the right questions and turn our ideas into meaningful, actionable strategies.
I had the unique opportunity to visit the Swiss Embassy, where I gained insight into the role of diplomacy in fostering strong relationships between Switzerland and the United States.
The embassy functions as a center for international collaboration, working with partner countries and global organizations to address pressing issues such as poverty, gender inequality, and climate change. Through this visit, I learned how diplomats engage in meaningful dialogue and policy development to create sustainable, people-focused solutions.
Officials from the Swiss Embassy shared how they partner with local communities to identify needs and implement programs that empower individuals and strengthen long-term development. This commitment to community-driven impact inspired my team and me as we worked to develop our own business proposal focused on creating lasting change.
During my visit to the Embassy of Guyana, I explored how diplomacy shapes international cooperation and development. The experience provided a deeper understanding of the embassy’s role in promoting peace, fostering economic partnerships, and addressing shared global challenges.
Embassy representatives discussed how their work supports cross-cultural exchange, advances policy priorities, and strengthens relationships between Guyana and the United States. I learned how embassies serve as bridges, connecting governments, communities, and organizations to create innovative solutions for global issues.
This visit broadened my perspective on international leadership and inspired me to think critically about how collaboration, cultural awareness, and strategic planning can drive meaningful progress, principles we applied while developing our business proposal.
Throughout the internship, our team had the incredible opportunity to collaborate with top experts in business and economic development from Johns Hopkins University, the U.S. State Department, and the U.S. Department of Commerce.
One of the highlights was a session with Carla Brooks, Business and Development Officer at the Johns Hopkins Center for Communication Programs. She gave us a crash course in marketing and advertising, breaking down the key elements of what makes a campaign actually work. Her insights helped us think bigger and more strategically about how to position our partner’s business for success.
With support from Ms. Brooks and other global leaders, we sharpened our ideas, refined our strategy, and built a powerful pitch deck to present at the end of the week. Their guidance helped us take our business proposal to the next level creating a plan designed not only to launch a venture, but to transform our business partner’s future.