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Freedom is a Universal Right ...But are we truly free?By Naomi Sesay

No one in Britain has been able t o e s c a p e t h e h o o p l a surrounding the elections this May. By the time you read this we will be going through a new shuffle of parliament which may or may not change the way you do things in life.

M y q u e s t i o n i s , w i l l anything REALLY change? Evidently, some people in this world will thrive in whatever polit ical cl imate they find themselves in and some become stuck and strangled in the economic policies they believe pertain to them. We instinctively know our freedom does not fall on the laps of those who believe they can make a better life for us in the country in which we live and work. Only you can do that. So, here is another question; what does FREEDOM mean to

you? What exactly is it? I asked this question to many people and invariably I will get more or less the same answer; the freedom to do what one wants.

But how do we know that what we want has not been subjugated by someday else's needs? We may live in an abundant society but there are definitely shackles hanging around all of us which are subtle and can be devastating. Most of these chains have been an indoctrination in of our psyche by very clever campaigns and marketing tools.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not talking about conspiracy theories here, I am talking about the fact that we are bombarded every single day about what we should eat by our food industries, what we should wear by our

fashion industries, what drugs we s h o u l d i n g e s t b y t h e pharmaceutical industries and we take all of it for granted, thinking that ‘others’ know better than what our hearts tell us.

Take a look around you, we have an increasingly obese society because we are told that certain foods are good for us when they are clearly not; it’s a money thing. We are told that a prescription is going make us better, when clearly it has detrimental side affects; It’s a money thing. We hunger after the latest fashion even though it seems that the sizes seem to get smaller which add to our

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THE BILLIONAIRE

The Monthly Journal for the 21st Century woman.

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0 Ladies Club

Belief Leadership And Choice

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0 Country Profile: Sao Tome & Principe

As tiny as it is, Sao Tome & Principe could o n c e a g a i n b e a p o w e r f u l i s l a n d o f commerce, but this time ruled by women. Z e s a n a t t P e q u e n o investigates.By Zesanatt Pequeno

Leisurely lying off the West Coast of Africa, the lush islands of São Tomé and Príncipe are located most precisely 140 kilometres apart, and are found at 250 and 225 kilometres respectively off the coast of Gabon.

The Islands of São Tomé are thought to have been populated before the arrival of the Portuguese. These traditional be l ie fs , deeply embedded in to children’s fairytales and popular culture, lie in the fact that natives found on the island of São Tomé, upon arrival of the colonisers, descended from various civilisations; among them the Phoenicians who first lived on the islands and used them for fishing and salt extraction.

Other stories brush over tales of the island being used as a holiday resort for ancient African peoples and diverge between fiction and fact.

On the 21st day of December 1468 two Portuguese explorers discovered the

Gulf of Guinea Islands. Most precisely São Tomé, Príncipe, Ano Bom and Fernando Pó. It was St. Thomas’s day, consequently naming the main island São Tomé. After nearly 500 years of Portuguese control, STP became an independent country in July 12th 1975, it became known as the Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe.

The Economy

São Tomé and Príncipe islands have been at various times all through history, economically prosperous. The adequacy of its landscape, its climate and its rich and fertile soil fitted perfectly with the crops the Portuguese chose to sow. The sugarcane plantation era that ensued soon after discovery

took place, was short-lived by the internal struggles between the various social structures. The late 19th and 20th century brought with it the cocoa and the coffee plantations, which once again pushed the islands into the international stage in 1908, when STP became the biggest cocoa producer in the world. Its coffee, although not mass produced is still recognised today, amongst coffee connoisseurs, as one of the best in the world for its exquisite taste and wonderful aroma.

Women fish traders as a social and economic force

Women in Business

It will only be a matter of time until woman attain their rightfully owned leading place within the Saotomean society

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Women fish traders or ‘palayes’ as locally called, play a powerful role within the fishing economy. 17% of the population of Sao Tome and Príncipe are in one way or another involved in fishery activity.

The female share of this activity is basically taking over when the fish is unloaded from the boats, buying it directly from the fishermen. They transport and market the catch, and in some cases transform it into dried or salted fish.

In terms of responsibility for household food secu r i ty, t he women a re r e s p o n s i b l e f o r p r o v i d i n g complementary food items such as vegetables, rice, palm oil and salt. In addition to generating income, these women also raise pigs, poultry, sell or barter any surplus meat, chickens or eggs. When adverse conditions keep them from selling fish, they diversify into trading or selling their farmed products . The more successful ‘palayes’ also become informal money lenders for the fishermen, enabling them to purchase fishing gear. The fishermen become dependent on a ‘palaye’, much as farmers sometimes become dependent on traders. Their power is further enhanced through associations, reducing their operating costs through the shared use of fish-drying sheds and the bulk purchase of salt.

Slowly towards Political Parity

Despite the cultural machismo deeply embedded in the Saotomean society, politics in São Tomé follow the pattern of "closed entities" and old boys' networks, making it hard for women to gain entry. Still, against all odds Sao Tome is one of the few countries in Africa to virtually attain gender parity

in primary school. Furthermore, the bubbling gender struggle and awareness has been propelled to the forefront in 2002 at the election of the first female prime minister to power.

Maria Das Neves has taken her fight to promote gender equality to the national stage. So far Das Neves has succeeded in changing legislations such as the criminal code, to consider physical violence against women as a crime. She has also used creative methods to give her support to the Association of Women Entrepreneurs and explicitly promote the potential of women to embark on private business initiatives with the aim of reducing unemployment and fight poverty.

Agricultural Resurrection

Only nine years ago, cocoa producers in São Tome and Principe were suffering because of falling global prices. Drought and mismanagement have also had a detrimental effect and caused further decline of cocoa production which made up 90% of the country’s exports; thus making the island heavily r e l i a n t o n f o r e i g n a i d . M a n y agricultural farmers abandoned their cocoa plantations, while others cut down the trees to clear land for maize or other crops. Several initiatives such as AgroBusiness, by The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Artisanal Fisheries Development Programme were drafted at aim developing strategies to address the needs of poor rural people in the sectors of agriculture and fisheries with the objective of improving their access to internal and external markets, whilst providing knowledge to develop and sustain their self-reliance. At the start, the project encouraged smallholder cocoa producers to resume cultivating t h e i r t r e e s , a n d e n c o u r a g e d communities to organise associations to manage the collection and drying of the cocoa beans.

These programs, particularly set up to support the development of the agricultural sector, have been specially designed to accommodate findings supporting the view that when women have access to agricultural inputs,

relevant training and financing, farm productivity gains are high. Such views have inspired several organisations such as the ones named above to develop programs aimed at helping rural people, especially women to overcome poverty.

These efforts were perfectly correlated with international high consumer demands for organic, fair trade chocolate. This is breathing new life into an entire sector of the economy in S a o To m e . D u e t o a l l t h e s e developments, many farmers, many of which women switched to cocoa production and are growing organic cocoa for the international organic chocolate industry and earning more as a result. Further help has been presented by the construction of infrastructure in each community to enable producers to collect, weigh, ferment and dry the beans for export. Local NGOs and the government p rov ided technica l adv ice and assistance regarding organic cocoa regulations and production techniques. They helped conduct research, control quality and export the beans, and planting materials.

Although women still face immense struggles to attain parity within the social , pol i t ical an economical landscape in Sao Tome; traditionally, women can manage their own business enterprises independently. From market trading to fish selling and farming, women accumulate and manage large amounts of cash.

It will only be a matter of time until women attain their rightly owned leading place within the Saotomean Society.

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INNER

VISION

Recently, like many of you, I have been setting up a new business and dealing with all challenges that go along with that. It's fun and exciting and dare I say, character building and of course I love it. But it's easy to get lost in the initial stages, when you're spending a lot of time on the actual setting up. There are so many things to be done: logo design, website design, documentation, company headers, email accounts, email signatures… lots of admin and preparation, getting everything ready for action. And what stands out for me RIGHT THERE is the phrase 'getting ready for action' - which contains the clear message that what I'm actually doing is postponing the action. 

So the message here is watch yourself and don't postpone the action. You've set up a business because you have skills to offer that others want/need. Focus on those. You had the skills before you started registering

the company and working on the logo. And it's the SKILLS that people are buying into. We all want things to be as perfect as possible and everything in place before we start but it's more important to keep the action going and energy flowing. Otherwise you run the risk of the 'set up' tasks taking over and becoming your main focus. Keep the focus on the end result. Remind yourself morning and evening what your end result is, especially in terms of accomplishments for the week - you are more likely to achieve them without getting lost in a sea of admin.

I was having a discussion at the weekend about 'being ready' with one of the incredible ladies in my BLC Genesis Inner Circle - she has this amazing idea and has so much passion for it that she bubbles up every time she talks about it. Still she doesn't feel she's ready to present it because she wants to be the BEST she

ACTION!And the Benefits of Working Together By Kate McGurk

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can be in order to give the MOST she can give to those who receive her information. An admirable quality - except that she is the best already. I have never heard anyone else talk about her subject matter and she is so engaging when she talks about it that I want to talk to her for hours on the subject. Literally. Now to put this in context, I have to say at this point, that once you're in the BLC and are given your modules to complete and your groups to work in, things move pretty fast and feeling 'not totally prepared' is inevitable. But it's one of those moving goalposts. We always feel we're not ready - and bringing this back to your own business, you mustn't lose sight of why you've started it. It's because you ALREADY have skills that other people will find useful. So don't stop leveraging on those skills because you're engrossed in set up and lost in an ever-expanding list of things to do, which have little to do with your unique wealth strengths. I agree it's important to have a clear and strong brand when you take on clients, but my point is you can spend too long ironing out the creases and perfecting everything before just starting. Many of us are in the situation that we're working on our own and starting it all from scratch. But if you're not careful, you run the risk of missing opportunities because you're postponing the game. This is a tough admission If you're a perfectionist, but take an honest self-evaluation right now - are you putting off something that you could START? I love that word. One of the biggest small words. Short & simple, but one we can have a tendency to run and hide from. One of my mantras is 'the important thing is to begin' because it empowers me to take the first steps when a task seems so giant that I'm not sure how I'll ever do it.  "" It is hard to feel it's OK to go forward without having everything perfectly aligned and this is one area where working with others comes into its own. It keeps the energy up and focussed and more likely than not will drive you toward your end goal because you're now a force of number. A great illustration of this was last Thursday - I was sat working by myself on my own business and I receive a perfectly-timed email requesting a Skype call to run through an idea. Within the space of 1.5 hours, one person had called a meeting on a powerful idea, we had taken it into a Skype conference call with a small number of attendees, (4 in this case). We talked for an hour - (15 min intro, half an hour brainstorm and 15 min conclusion and action plan) - the phone was down and plans were going into ACTION. It was FAST and EFFECTIVE. Yes, individually any one of us could have done that by ourselves - had an idea, formulated a strategy and started working on it - but the power of working on an idea with others within a group is capitalising on group skillset and importantly, energy and drive. Each fulfills their tasks to the timeframe, let's say taking one thing to work on, meaning in this case

four things are done by the end of the first stage before re-grouping. It's an economy of time and resources. The results are four-fold, leaving you time for your individual businesses and working in this way means you can be involved in more projects to grow your wealth because it's economical. It not only grows your wealth but also your skills - you can focus on your wealth strengths, whilst being supported by the others in the group who are working on theirs. This is key here - you want to form a group with people who compliment each others skills - figure out where your wealth strengths and your weaknesses are and work with people with whom you can develop a symbiotic relationship - where you are all mutually benefitting from the collaboration of skills and strengths."" Having this injection of others' energy with your own can get bigger results much faster than working by yourself. It creates drive and focus and frees up your time and energy for more projects, leading in turn to the possibility for further streams of income. It also creates an effective mechanism to work within in terms of timeframe and accountability, i.e. getting the job done and FINISHED."So with this in mind, take a look to see if there's someone who's got some skills you could use to propel your business and vice versa - whose business would YOU be great for? Which businesses or projects would your skills compliment? Why not approach them? Talk to people and find out where your skills can support each other on a project. Joint ventures are the way forward. Sharing projects frees up your own time and magnifies the results whilst creating more opportunities for income. It's a win-win.

" So if you have an idea and you don't know where to start, set up your power call now with a close circle of skilled people - and your only limits are the ones you choose to impose on yourself. Go for it!

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Help!Yep, those were the words I screamed out yesterday, albeit silently in my head, on my way back from seeing my mentors; yes all four of them. Each woman had big titles in front or behind her name, one was a CBE Commander of the British Empire, and one sold her business 4 years ago for £21 million pounds! Yes, I was in good company but I still felt helpless.

Do you want to know why? Well, I’ll tell you, but not quite yet. You see I had been looking forward to this meeting for over a month. I was desperate to get some guidance on how to franchise the Billionaire Ladies Club internationally as I have had so many requests to start it up in different countries. Great opportunities I hear you say. For sure, but I felt an humungous pressure to get it right from the beginning.

Here’s the thing, when you start up a business with something you’re passionate about, you forget the slim dividing line between who you are and who your business is. Yes, they are two separate entities. Every entrepreneur knows this intellectually but emotionally, the trouble starts to brew when you get to a stage where you have to start relinquishing control over your baby. Is the name right for an international market? Are the colours offensive in some countries, is there a more leading edge

e-learning business model? My mentors each threw a card on the table and said, “Naomi, you are going to have to deal with this, and this, and this...” Bring it on, I said bravely, and smiled weakly.

So why did I feel helpless? Because on that journey home, it smacked me in the face that I was moving up the BigGirls corporate ladder of business entrepreneurship and I was in the driving seat. I was responsible for the death or success of my ‘baby’. I was in essence growing up, moving in to new waters of international business.

I spoke to one of my BLC ladies and she said something that made me understand the power of my mission. She said ,“ These opportunities are coming to you because you're capable of them, otherwise they'd go to someone else... think about it in terms of being in service to others” It is for this reason that I love The Billionaire Ladies Club. The immense intoxicating power of support.

Ladies, I know were are going to kick it on the international platform, Bring It!! ! NS

“These opportunities are coming to you because you're capable of them, otherwise they'd go to someone else... think about it in terms of being in service to others”

Blog To GoThe Power of Powerful WomenBy Naomi Sesay

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The Billionaire Ladies Club is growing every month.This newsletter is only the 6th issue and is already distributed to a database of over 100,000 women (and some men) monthly. !Add to that the unquantified number who view it online globally via social media, including Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.!

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Please contact us for our rate card and contra deal packages.advertising@blcmedia.co.uk

“True freedom is not a choice, it is an innate right.”

Naomi Sesay

psychological stress. Again, it’s a money thing.Yesterday, I was talking to friend of mine whilst on the

computer. I performed a particular action on the computer and he got very agitated and stressed asking me why I did this action in the way I did and not how I was TOLD to do it by the computer. I said it was easier. He continued to tell me that if I don’t do things by the rules I will get lost. He told me that he does what he is told and everything works out all right!! I couldn’t help but stare at him.

If freedom means being safe under somebody else's rule, you can certainly count me out. I have no desire to live my life under the premise of another’s ideology of life. However, in a powerfully media pervasive society such as Britain, sometimes we don’t even know that we are living by somebody else's rule. We believe that our choices are our own and we underestimate the powerful engine of persuasion that beams through our lives every single day through television, radio, advertising billboards, religion, school; you name it, someone else is version of life is impacting upon your power of decision making.

So can we ever be truly free? For sure, sit on an island and meditate! OR be acutely aware that the one who is most certain wins. Make your choices and your decisions work for you regardless of the persuasions of the Big People /Industry who have other ideas of what’s best for you. Our power to become truly free comes from the confidence to look within and act from the knowledge of our higher selves. "True freedom always been yours.

! ! ! ! Naomi Sesay

BLCMONTHLYEVENTS

May

Vogue Photo Shoot. Date to be confirmed

BLC Introduction Evening TBC

22nd & 23rd My Wealth My Way Workshop

28th & 29th - Forex to Freedom Workshop

For more information on these events, please go to : kkadyz@yahoo.co.uk

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