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Meet Oluwasotemidire and Oluwatamilore Oniyitan, the young twin philanthropists with many businesses

What we do We are Temi and Tami Oniyitan, enterprising twin sisters, Founders and CEOs of the “Mimi’s” brand. The Mimi’s brand currently comprises Mimi’s Mocktails & Juices, Mimi’s Academy, Mimi’s Adventure Book Series and Mimi’s Essentials. Our passion to create multiple businesses is fueled by our desire to make a difference and inspire others,…

Oluwasotemidire and Oluwatamilore Oniyitan

What we do

We are Temi and Tami Oniyitan, enterprising twin sisters, Founders and CEOs of the “Mimi’s” brand. The Mimi’s brand currently comprises Mimi’s Mocktails & Juices, Mimi’s Academy, Mimi’s Adventure Book Series and Mimi’s Essentials.

Our passion to create multiple businesses is fueled by our desire to make a difference and inspire others, especially children.

We contribute our profits and donations from our campaigns to our Mimi’s Give Back Initiative, from which we pay school fees, provide school supplies and organise book drives, among others, for children from low-income families in Nigeria.

With our business, we help children, youths and adults experience a burst of happiness through our mocktails, juices, books, speaking engagements, trainings, essential items and humanitarian work focused on education for the poor.

Our mission

Our mission is to motivate, inspire and encourage children and youths around the world to do what they love, dream BIG, make their dreams come true and use their success to make the world a better place.

How we started and why we decided to go into business

Our entrepreneurial journey was triggered by the need to play our part in solving education problem in Nigeria.

When we were 7 years old, our mum told us about the number of out-of-school children in Nigeria. We were very sad and wanted to do something about it.

She told us about different ways we could solve the problem and we decided to start a business, so we can use part of our profits, as well as our platform to seek donations for these children.

This led to the launch of our first business, Mimi’s Mocktails & Juices, at the KENT Fair in 2017, when we were 7 years old.

The journey so far

Our journey so far has been awesome, rewarding and with some challenges. We have come to accept that we will always face challenges as young moguls.

We are, however, happy with the rewards we have gotten from choosing to be entrepreneurs.

We have been featured on various local and international media platforms, including CultureTree, Kids of the Kosmos and Juniority TV.

We are recipients of the Best Appearance prize at the KENT Fair in 2017, Humanitarian of the Year award from the prestigious Nigerian Child Summit and Awards, Kidpreneur Ambassador award from KidpreneurAfrica and the SDG Badge (for our work on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education) from the Nigerian Child Initiative, all in 2018.

We are also now ambassadors for Future4Kids Africa and the International Daddy-Daughter Day Out.

We recently launched our book (alongside 25 other child authors from around the world) called The Science Behind It: Formulating Success At Any Age.

We are also working on our next book focused on Sustainable Development Goals. It would be the first of many in our Mimi’s Adventure Book Series.

We also just launched the second round of our Mimi’s Give Back Campaign. Last year, we paid school fees and provided school supplies for three children.

In this new campaign, we are paying school fees and providing our ‘HOPE’ schoolbags filled with school supplies to eight (8) children, the same number as our age. The application for this years campaign closes 10th October 2018.

Our Role Models

We pull inspiration first from God, Who put us on this earth for a purpose. We also draw inspiration from our mom, Olanrewaju Oniyitan, because she helps us all the time in everything that we do.

Our mom went the whole nine yards to write a book for us on entrepreneurship called “Minipreneur” because she could not find a local resource for us.

Our dad, Abiodun Oniyitan, also inspires us a lot. He ditches the African and Nigerian Father stereotype and does everything within his reach to support our dreams.

We get even more inspiration from the stories of our late grandmother (Antonia Obafunke Motolani) that our mom tells us.

She was a phenomenal businesswoman and a huge giver. She was known for giving to a lot of people who still talk about her many years after her passing.

We are also inspired by other world-changers like Nelson Mandela, Wangari (Mother of Trees), Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa. Their lives have taught us that Leaders are givers.  

What business means to us

Our business is a vehicle to help us DO GOOD. Our favourite quote is ‘Doing good is good business.’ For us, business is about being good.

Being good to those who work with you, good to those who buy from you, good to your neighbours, good to your environment, good to your community, good to your nation.

Just be good, and you will never regret it. As we help children from poor families from the money from our businesses, doing good is the number one key to our success. The world will be so much better, if we are all good to one another.

Our advice to other kids

Our advice to other kids (and even adults) that want to be entrepreneurs is for them to identify their passion and link it to their business.

It makes it easier. Our business started out of our passion to raise money to help poor children to go to school. It is the same passion that has led us to the creation of our other businesses.

Our goals for the future

We envision a world, where every child has access to education. Education is every child’s right.

And we will do all we can to make it happen, especially for children from poor families. This vision continues to drive us.

We will also go a step further to teach others to see what we see, so that they can change the world with us. There is an African proverb that says, “It takes a village to raise a child.”

Well, we are part of that village and we will do all we can to ensure poor children have access to education, even though we are children ourselves.

While we are doing that, we will continue to build great business empires that will help us achieve our goals, so that even when people decide not to give, our profits are large enough to fund our humanitarian work.

In doing all of this, we will continue to pursue our own education to the highest level, in line with our dreams. We believe in the power of education.

Contact Information:
Social Media: @MimisExplorers (Facebook, Twitter & Instagram)
Website: www.mimis.com.ng
Email: mimis.explorers@gmail.com
Phone number: 08074027038

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