From Local Craft to Cross-Border Opportunities: How LCAP Is Supporting Lydia Figuereido Grow Her Business
Weaving Change: From Invasive Reeds to Lasting Impact
What happens when a promising entrepreneurial idea receives the right support, visibility, and connections to grow? For Lydia Figuereido, founder of Lydiana Imagination Solutions in Malawi and winner of the 2026 LCAP Blueprint Program Pitch Day, the answer is a thriving business with the potential for lasting social, economic and environmental impact.
Lydia leads a women-led weaving cooperative that transforms invasive reeds into handcrafted baskets and biodegradable planting baskets. By combining traditional weaving skills with environmentally conscious innovation, her venture creates economic opportunities for women while contributing to environmental restoration.
Her journey demonstrates how entrepreneurship can become a powerful tool for community development when local knowledge meets new opportunities.
Turning Traditional Skills into Economic Opportunity
At the heart of Lydiana Imagination Solutions is a simple but powerful idea: transform an environmental challenge into an opportunity for sustainable enterprise.
Through the cooperative, Lydia brings together 11 women weavers who use their skills to create products with both practical and environmental value.
The business not only preserves traditional craftsmanship but also gives women the opportunity to earn a steady income. The progress so far is encouraging: the cooperative has sold 50 baskets, and monthly income per weaver has more than doubled, from USD 48 to USD 110.
These results reflect more than business growth. They demonstrate the potential of locally driven enterprises to strengthen livelihoods, support women’s economic participation and create value from resources once seen as a problem.
Her venture’s progress earned Lydia first place at the 2026 LCAP Blueprint Program Pitch Day. She also received a CAD 500 seed grant through the Jim Leech Mastercard Foundation Fellowship, giving her valuable support as she prepares for the next stage of growth.
Through the LCAP Blueprint Program 2026, Malawian entrepreneur Lydia Figuereido is transforming traditional weaving into a sustainable business, creating economic opportunities for women, and building connections across Africa.
Beyond the Pitch: Opportunities Across Borders
Winning the pitch competition was an important milestone, but the opportunities emerging from Lydia’s participation in the program have extended well beyond the event. Her venture has attracted interest from potential collaborators in Malawi, Ethiopia and Tanzania, showing how greater visibility can connect entrepreneurs with people and organizations that can help them grow.
Malawi: Creating New Sales Opportunities
In Blantyre, a combined bookstore and art gallery formalized a collaboration with Lydia’s cooperative and began displaying its products. The partnership puts the women’s handcrafted baskets in front of new customers and expands the business’s market reach.
Ethiopia: Strengthening Digital Presence
A software engineering company in Ethiopia offered to build a website for the cooperative at no cost. If the project goes ahead, it could help Lydia showcase the cooperative’s products online, strengthen its digital presence and reach customers beyond its local market.
Tanzania: Exploring Regional Collaboration
SAMOK Consulting, based in Zanzibar, reached out to explore potential collaboration and knowledge exchange between Southern and Eastern Africa. This connection offers a chance to share experiences, build partnerships and learn from entrepreneurial initiatives across both regions.
Together, these developments show how entrepreneurial support can open doors to relationships and resources that might otherwise be difficult for a young business to access. While these opportunities are still taking shape, they are important steps toward expanding Lydia’s network and positioning her venture for future growth.
Building a Stronger Foundation for Growth
With interest in her products rising and new connections taking shape, Lydia is now preparing for the next phase of her venture. Her priorities include investing in raw materials, creating higher-value products, reaching new customers and improving inventory management. Together, these steps will help the cooperative keep up with demand, strengthen its operations and build a business that can last
As the venture grows, balancing commercial success, environmental responsibility and benefits for the women involved will remain essential. The connections made through the LCAP Blueprint Program could help Lydia try new approaches, access additional expertise and find ways to scale her business. Turning these promising links into lasting partnerships will take continued engagement, planning and follow-through. Even so, the progress achieved so far provides a strong foundation to build on.
The Ripple Effect of Entrepreneurial Support
Lydia’s story shows that supporting one entrepreneur can benefit many others. Her cooperative gives 11 women an income from traditional weaving skills, turns an environmental problem into innovative products, and is building connections across Malawi, Ethiopia and Tanzania that open doors to new markets, expertise and networks.
For LCAP, Lydia’s progress reflects the value of creating spaces where entrepreneurs can strengthen their ideas, demonstrate their potential and connect with people who can support their ambitions. Her story is a reminder that a program’s impact is not measured only by what happens during training or on Pitch Day. It is also seen in what participants go on to build, the partnerships they form and the opportunities they create for others.
As Lydia builds her business, her next chapter will focus on turning early achievements and new connections into lasting progress for her venture and the women behind it. One idea has already begun creating a ripple effect. With continued support, collaboration and determination, that ripple has the potential to reach even further.
At Leading Change Africa, we celebrate entrepreneurs like Lydia who turn ideas into action and open doors for others to thrive
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