Chris Oyakhilome, the legendary visionary who founded the Chris Oyakhilome Foundation International (COFI) in 2008 is invested in the future of Africa. This is evident in the organizations, partnerships, sponsors, and enormous contributions made by the NGO towards healthcare, education, leadership, and community values.
The Chief Operating Officer of LoveWorld Incorporated, Pastor Ifeoma Chiemeka recently disclosed in a press conference that COFI has donated 63m milliliters of blood across hospitals in Africa to save 400,000 lives as part of efforts to improve lives and better society in the continent.
She added that the foundation recruited 65,539 voluntary blood donors, executed 657 first aid training sessions, and 202 Public enlightenment campaigns.
This was acknowledged at the Future African Leaders Awards (FALA) 10th-anniversary press briefing which was held last week. Since its establishment 10 years ago, it was revealed that the Chris Oyakhilome Foundation International has invested over N1 billion in young people.
Humanitarian Assistance Provided
One of the partners under the COFI umbrella is the Volunteer Medical Corps (VMC), founded in 2016 as a global medical outreach organization, providing humanitarian assistance in the form of medical care, relief assistance, and long-term healthcare networks to communities in need.
Through the partnership of these organizations, more people in dire need are able to receive the medical aid they desperately deserve.
Pastor Chiemeka added that other critical achievements of the foundation included the recruitment and training of 10,161 first responders who are trained to potentially provide lifesaving first aid and CPR to 162,576 beneficiaries.
“Recognising the necessity to change Africa’s narrative and the need to contribute immensely to nation-building, the Future Africa Leaders Foundation organized the annual historic Africa Day event where young people were mobilized to execute over 2,000,000 humanitarian acts of service, organize 1,302 conferences and summits impacting 81,650,329 families across Africa,” Pastor Chiemeka told the press conference. She added that the culmination of inspiring humanitarian efforts and initiatives was the FALA 2022 Awards which took place on the 31st of December.
“Working tirelessly to ignite contributive value to Africa’s growth and development through FALA has inspired and motivated over 73,829,127 young people to carry out 25,848,81 sustainable projects that benefitted 17,823,160 families in 54 African countries with a cumulative project engagement margin of 110 percent.”
Latest Young Leader in the Healthcare Category
The latest FALA Award Winner to take the prestigious Star Prize is 22-year-old Lebsey Petmia Lebaga, from Cameroon who saw a need for an active primary healthcare system in Cameroon. She said in an interview: “In Cameroon, there is no trained community health advocate. The community health workers are almost insignificant. “Within my powers in the next two years, we should have at least 3,000 persons. That will cause a tremendous change and shift and there would be a decrease in some communicable diseases.”
Lebsey highlighted the core of her focus which includes advocating health insurance policy, training community health workers, implementing very strong policies that healthcare professionals are well taken care of, and improving the management of non-communicable diseases in society.
