•Mrs. Brenda Odiase Photo: Sun News Publishing

Woman of the Sun Index

An encounter with Mrs. Brenda Odiase, chief executive of Teclab Management Services, a corporate cum private domestic management and training services is highly refreshing and rewarding. With her, there can never be a dull moment as she talks animatedly about her dream to elevate domestic workers into a respected vocation, if not a profession.

Indeed, her dogged determination to take the otherwise lowly and sometimes "degrading" job to an enviable height is infectious.

It is your first encounter with her in her office based in Ogba, Ikeja, Lagos. Even though it is a fleeting one, it is nevertheless long enough for her to create an impression in your mind. She comes across as one with deep passion for the home front. She speaks about the family unit with abiding love and commitment. A wife, mother and career lady, she speaks of the need for a happy home, which according to her would form the basis for a happy society.

She holds very strong views on the issue of domestic workers and other low-level workers who she believes play significant role in our individual and national lives, but are accorded scant regard. For instance, she frowns at the fact that domestic workers are not captured anywhere in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) calculation of the nation, though they play a major role.
Situating the role of the domestic workers in it proper context, Mrs Odiase argues: "When a home is not settled, madam would not be at peace and invariably, Oga would be affected and that would affect the overall national output." In a way, she reckons with them as home managers whose roles are often made light of.

In fact, it is this realisation that has led her into forming her organisation, Teclab, a human capital, resource management and development outfit. It has assigned for itself the task of providing and training domestic hands for both individuals and corporate organisations. "We exist to provide affordable domestic management, training and outsourcing services with professionalism and integrity while creating jobs for the Nigerian youths", she says.

Without prompting, Mrs. Odiase takes you into the circumstance that gave birth to Teclab. The company, according to her, was borne out of what she describes as an individual frustration and sojourn with domestic personnel.
"Everywhere women are gathered, there’s a natural topic that evolves in all their discussions – domestic helps", she tells you.

"There are always various complaints about these househelps; from inexperience, security, naivety, to lack of education and safety i.e. health and environmental".
Having herself gone through the travail of having 15 househelps, six drivers and four washer men in a short span of six years, she felt the urge to do something so as to lighten the burden of the generality of women.

She reasons that due to the above fact, there has been endless tales of woes and frustration on the part of women sometimes leading to their resignation from their jobs and thereby leaving the husbands to carry the burden of maintaining the home alone. In some instances, where the woman decides to damn the consequence and stick to her career path, the children are often left out and exposed to endless danger.

"Thus, the passion in me to do something about the above predicament faced by women with various artisans." She adds: "We all dream of coming home to a happy, comfortable and well organised house where everything is clean, and proper in its place, where delicious and hygienically prepared meals are served on time. this dream can become real with domestic help who have proper training."
After about 20 months of operation, and some 200 domestic workers of various background sourced out to those in need of their service, Mrs. Odiase says it has been worth the while, apparently not because of the fat bucks she has been able to garner for herself, but owing to the fact that she has been able to "lift the burden off many people."

However, there seems to be a little cog in the wheels of giving domestic succour to people. "Our service is in great demand, as there are abundant applicants, but there are no workers", she says with regret ringing in her voice. It is to nip this ugly trend in the bud that she has gone a step further to establish the Teclab Domestic Training Institute.

"We have set up the institute to train manpower in the domestic sector. We take our students through a course of theoretical and practical training in their various fields. We groom them to be able to carry out the challenge. We inculcate in them the culture of dignity in labour so that they are not ashamed to discharge the responsibility given to them with diligence and commitment. I can tell you that since we took off, many private individuals have been sending their workers here for training. We also have others who enrol for training after which we help them secure jobs."

According to Odiase, when Teclab was established 16 months ago, the effort was mostly concentrated on home managers, particularly in providing cooks and nannies. However, the demand for drivers and other services has prompted the management to divert its attention towards recruiting other artisans.
Spurred by the interest of the public and the demand for its services, she reveals that Teclab has decided to step up training of personnel at Teclab Domestic Training Institute.

Domestic personnel training
This category, she says includes drivers, cooks, butlers, doormen, househelps, nannies, care-givers, personnel assistants, facility/home managers, cleaners and security operatives. They are taught how to live at home and be more professional in their duties, how to treat their masters, welcome friends, guests and relations and how to treat the children too. Furthermore, she says they are taught on how to answer phone calls and the etiquette of hygiene and cleanliness. "These artisans will also be taught on how to train their master’s children and those that are care-givers will be taught on how to treat the elderly ones that they are assigned to take care of."

The Teclab boss is convinced that given the key roles they play in our individual, corporate and national life, domestic workers deserve a great deal of good treatment and enhanced training.

"We cannot do without domestic workers. They need to be treated with dignity. In fact, with proper training and counselling, we can even have graduates coming into it. Why not? Part of the goal we’ve set for ourselves at Teclab is to reposition domestic workers. If a graduate can leave Nigeria to become a glorified house-girl abroad, why can’t we refocus our system here to make it worthwhile and attractive for them to take up jobs as domestic workers? Our vision is to be a household name and give a new face to home and domestic management services by year 2020", she declares boldly.

And part of the measure to achieving this lofty goal is a one-day seminar with the theme: "The Domestic Worker-Unmeasured, Undervalued and the Effect on the Nigerian Economy", billed for May.