Encomium
Bukola Fasuyi is a young woman behind the popular Non-Governmental organization, Lady of Africa Empowerment and Advocacy Foundation. ENCOMIUM Weekly had an interview with the Ekiti-Pupa, Ondo State born journalist turned humanitarian, a couple of days back at an event in Ikeja, Lagos. She spoke on the Foundation and many more…
Since your foray into journalism, how many human angle stories have you done?
I will say over 200 heart rending human angle stories that have drawn the sympathy of well meaning Nigerians and brought succor to the lives of some of the subjects. I can’t pick one, because I have had so many including the story of a mother and child bathed with acid on suspicion of dating someone’s husband, a six year old child who suffers from a hole in the heart and have a cancerous infection on her hand. The woman who suffered vaginal cancer and was abandoned by her family and friends; they are countless and each has its sympathy point that will bring tears to any humane person.
Time and time again it has been said that it is not enough to just pity these people without actually doing something to bring them succour, how have you contributed your own quota in this regard?
I quite agree with you that it is not just enough to cry for these people and that is why I and some friends put together our resources to establish the Lady of Africa Empowerment and Advocacy Foundation which caters for the less privileged, physically challenged and indigent people, especially women.
It is worthy to mention that the foundation has resettled a number of indigent and afflicted people, ranging from terminal ailments to victims of mundane jealousy and others too numerous to mention here. And some of them have been operated on to remove the affliction where possible.
What else is the foundation doing in other areas of life?
Yes, the foundation has other areas of interest like I earlier said; the women folk have our greatest sympathy for the malicious treatment meted to them by some cultural and social practices.
In order to be able to mobilize women from all walks of life into a very big movement to further strengthen the campaign for women empowerment, we have created the Women’s Gold Club as a wing of the foundation. This is a pivot group working through the Role Model/Protégé concept, Women Empowerment Programmes, Mentoring and Youth Capacity Building in order to create a new league of female leaders.
Our mission is to create a platform through which African Women can exchange ideas and network in order to synergize the peculiar challenges facing women all over Africa into one big movement with the aim of aiding the rapid progression of African women to the mainstream of the society.
How has your organisation been doing this?
We work on the Provision of human capital development training and other forms of support for unemployed young people, provide assistance to women with health issues; most especially cancer victims.
We also have the Lady of Africa Annual Conference. This is aimed at examining the human development indices of African women, create avenues for network with women in successful careers, and assist vulnerable women; especially indigent women, young girls, single mothers, widows and physically challenged women towards achieving their life goals.
We generally Enlighten, empower and inspire women on issues relating to women development.
Further we have the Lady of Africa Monthly Dialogue, which creates an avenue for members to meet with women in successful careers and gain from their wealth of experience. There is also the Lady of Africa Quarterly Dialogue, where we create avenues for women to network and exchange ideas. However, the quarterly dialogue is exclusive to only gold members.
How would you assess the performance of your foundation?
From the target set at the very beginning, I will say, we have only tried our best as there is still so much for us to be done. At the very beginning our major aim was to simply and nobly address the basic problems facing our societies especially the women as the bedrock of any society.
The Foundation has consequently mapped out strategies to meet this target, but honestly we are behind schedule; you know that every strategic plan has its timelines and when we consider our timelines, we are very far behind schedule.
Despite the challenges, we have been able to put smiles on the faces of over three hundred Nigerians in various ways, including empowerment through human capital training, financial assistance and many more. But I think our greatest attainment has been in our health programme and advocacy.
What has been your biggest challenge?
Like in every human endeavor, finance has been our major challenge. This is closely followed by lack of human resources while general apathy comes-in in a close third place.
We, however, will like to thank those Nigerians who have responded to our pleas for assistance each time we have called for assistance to our constituency; indigent people challenged by their health conditions.
So what have you been doing to surmount the challenge?
The Foundation has been getting some of its funding from my personal effort, but mainly from benevolent Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora, especially my friends and some Nigerians for many times have stopped me from mentioning their names in any medium. But I bless God for their assistance which has taken us this far.
So to assuage these challenges, we have been doing a lot of interpersonal advocacies, governmental lobbying, media enlightenment and advocacies to generate interest and subsequently empathy.
We also have the Street Couture which is our fashion business wing, Pure Soul Cosmetics and Domestic Items Company; and a burgeoning food and beverage company
I am happy to also inform you that as part of these efforts, we will be part of the 2014 Association of Ogun State Indigenes in Ireland’s celebration; with the Adire Street Culture Carnival as part of our own contributions to the celebration of our culture, values and norms; and as a means of raising funds for our task of making life better for the indigent and the needy.
Why street culture?
You and I know that most of the indigent and the destitute are found on the streets. So fundamentally, what we are saying is that life is hard on the street, so we need to address the street culture and that is by reducing the number of the people on the street.
So the name is a kind of reminder to those of us who have the comfort of our homes that there are others on the street who require our effort, our time and our money to get off the street.
In Nigeria where people don’t seem to recognize people who do this kind of work, what has been your major motivation?
Well! In this field, you must not expect any reward or else you will miss the point altogether.
I was brought by a loving and dotting but firm mother, and inspired by the likes of Mother Theresa, Oprah Winfrey, Late Pastor Bimbo Odukoya and Mahatma Gandhi amongst others.
More so, I wasn’t expecting any profit at the start-off of my sojourn, so it’s not been about recognition. However, we have been encouraged by so many individuals and organisation that have rewarded us with Awards, including the Black Culture Outstanding Achievers Award, Classic Africa Merit Awards for our Humanitarian Services, and a host of others.
The current generation of youth is living on the fast lane?
This generation of young people should not think about age, admiring your age mates is good, but measuring yourself with what people within your age bracket have achieved at a particular time makes you forget where you are coming from.
As you look up to some other people, remember the millions of people who want to be where you are today.
There is never a time too late to be successful and there are no magical routes to success in life that is why it is important to set goals remain focused and be committed to hard work.
If you are fortunate to be successful, do not think it is by your intelligence or ability for it is only by God that man obtains the power to get wealth. Latecomers are not apprehended in the race to prosperity; as far as you remain focused and believe in your goals, you are on course.
More importantly, stick to the rules. Life is not about wealth, but about people and places.
Are you sure these will get the needed results?
Of course when you set out on a walk in life, you must not be pessimistic or else, you would have failed at the very beginning of the journey. We are assured of a little change of attitude, if not wholesale. But in the long run, we expect something positive to happen. So we are very positive.
– TADE ASIFAT
