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Ufuoma Emerhor- Ashogbon is the very passionate and
inspiring lady behind “Fair Life Africa”, a non-governmental charity
organization established to help the disadvantaged in the society. The softspoken
graduate of Manchester Metropolitan University, where she studied social work
recently launched a charity television show focused on giving sponsorship to
disadvantaged children with skills and talents. In this interview with Qismat Yinus,she speaks on
the talent search, and her charity organization in general.
Can we meet you?
I am Ufuoma Emerhor- Ashogbon. I am the oldest of my
siblings. I run Fair Life Africa Foundation.
What is Fair Life Africa
Foundation about?
Fair Life Africa is a charity organization that seeks to
empower people for a fairer life through social care initiatives. Through these
initiatives, we are
able to work with specific groups of people ,and currently our focus is on
disadvantaged children, between the ages of 9 to 17.
Can you tell us about this talent hunt which you are
currently working on?
The
talent search is basically to get five gifted children in the areas of
art,craft,sports, for us to sponsor. We will be giving them five years
of sponsorship to pursue their talents, develop their skills,and
ultimately achieve their potential. The main thing is that they are
disadvantaged, and have potentials or gifts. We have sixteen children
that are being sponsored in school. These are brilliant children that
we have assessed. It wasn't easy to assess children who have talents,so
we thought about organizing a talent search. Originally we thought it
would be a small in-house thing,but by the time we started planning,and
looking for sponsors, it became bigger. We approached Ultima Studios,
and decided to make it a television show.
So when will the television show start to air on tv stations?
I
can't tell you precisely when it will start to air, but we are aiming
for April 2016,and we will be reaching out to stations like Silverbird,
Ebony Life TV, and GET TV which is from Ultima. Cool TV, and Superscreen
too.
What inspired you to start these charity works?
I
just believe that those who are blessed have a duty to share. I am
blessed, and God has favored me, so I have a reason or burden to help
those who are less fortunate. So that is why I do it. I do it because of
God. For the talent search, we don't want to be just an academic
focused charity organization. We recognized that there are many children
people who have skills but can't put them into use because of obstacles
that get in their way.So they end up just begging,or selling things on
the street,and not maximizing their God given potentials.
Why did you decide to focus on children?
I
want to start where the need is greatest. I don't think we should
neglect children. We need to ensure we groom them right, nuture them
well at this young age, because they are the ones that will mentor the
children who come after them. When we help children,we are also helping
ourselves.
Are you looking at spreading your tentacles throughout Africa,as your name implies?
We
are looking at taking it beyond Africa. Our aim is to be the number one
charity organization in Africa. We are starting where we are,which is
Nigeria. This initiative is still Nigeria focused, but as we grow and
develop,we will reach out to other countries in Africa. That is my aim
for Fair Life Africa.
How do you get funds to run the organization?
We
seek funds from partners,corporate organizations,and friends. Most of
our funding or donations from past years have been from our trustees,
but in year 2015, most of the contributions have come from corporate
organizations. I am hoping that more individuals and corporate
organizations will support us this year. We don't get funds from
Government, or foundations that give grants. We are actually a
non-governmental, not for profit organization.
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