Faith Morey:  Despite Challenges, I Always Work Hard to Achieve My Aspirations

Born and raised in Port Harcourt, Nigerian-American model, entrepreneur and reality Tv star, Faith Morey has evolved over the years defining her personality to be one of class, confidence and distinction. Her journey into modeling had her venture into fashion as she started her own clothing line and accompanying this was her expansion into solar energy. She told Tosin Clegg about growing up, her personality and venturing into charity services among others

How was growing up like?

Growing up in Port Harcourt was an experience that has helped shape me to be the woman I am today. Grounded on the values instilled in me by my dear Grandmother living in a home filled with love and lots of family. Having to be guided not only at home but at church, Assemblies of God, Diobu always brings back feel good nostalgic memories that guide me even till today.

How would you define your personality and what makes you exceptional?

I consider myself a very confident and driven person. I have dreams and aspirations and have always worked hard to achieve them despite the challenges. I have always been resilient in attaining my goals as I also believe that there is a time for everything. I have had a very successful season in modeling after which I focused on other pursuits. I give a hundred per cent into anything I am doing and I will not embark on any venture without properly weighing my options as am not afraid to take calculated risks especially in business. 

At what moment did you decide to start a foundation?

The foundation was founded in memory of my Grandmother, Mrs Charity Okachi of Blessed memory as she was one woman that I always looked up to. She was strong and selfless putting herself before others always and she had so much love in her heart and I wanted to immortalize her through her legacy. Education is the best legacy for our children and the next generation and I want the profession she dedicated her life to for 30 years be the core mission of the foundation. She used to discipline children that didn’t want to be responsible and I want to continue that by using the foundation as a tool to encourage the next generation to be responsible and live a good life. I always want to be know for something impactful and education is the best way. 

Aside economic setbacks how is the foundation helping the mindsets of these kids?

The mindset of the children is as important as impacting the knowledge from education. Making them understand that they can over come any hurdle if they put in the work and have a positive mindset. I want people to be able to talk about their success story and one of the things we do is the Teacher Training Program. We have teachers on our payroll that we dedicate to these schools and minus teaching them they are also mentors. We also have psychologists and therapists in our program that once a month they would sit down with these kids and speak to them. I do understand working from within too and one of the things we do is we teach kindness. The foundation is a serving business and you cannot be on my team for more than a month if you don’t have passion. And when I mean passion I mean passion for helping these kids. Most of our teachers would tell you who a student is, their names, where they live and what days of the week they come to school as they cannot afford to come to school five days in a week. So, I always tell my teachers you need two kids to keep up with and our hope is to work with bigger foundations that specialise in stuffs like this. 

What are your projections for the foundation?

We are planning on adopting more schools and impacting more lives. We want to start a summer school program that will encourage out of school children to attend school so they can continue after the holidays and also help the children that are already in school get ready for the next school year. Also we would be introducing them to vocational training during the duration of the summer school. We hope to maintain all our projects, sustain infrastructures and start more in new locations.  I like talking and I know in as much as I’m very independent I also understand that it feels good to hav one person you can confide in. The mental and social part of their lives is important and I’m about to launch a social etiquette course and one of the things we have put in place in the foundation is to have a teacher teach these girls on how to talk, sit and act appropriately. 

What are the systems in place to ensure continuity?

The structure of the foundation is such that we have policies in place that will help to maintain and sustain our adopted schools and projects. We also have the support of stakeholders in our host communities and they also act as volunteers in proxy as they will help make sure our projects are maintained over time. We also understand we need to appreciate the Principal and Teachers that have been in these systems but the kids are our priority. For projects like desks and renovations of the schools we vet different artisans in the community as a way to bring jobs back to the community. We see your work, consider your price points and ensure once work is allocated there is a Project Manager on site to follow up on doing what they are supposed to do. We also work with the schools and tell them we are not here to change anything as we just want to make sure anything we are doing is legal, moral and according to the educational system. We also ask the Principals to get into the classrooms once or twice a week to see how our volunteer teachers are doing, what they would want us to change or how they feel about what we are doing. And one thing we have come to understand is that most of these kids don’t perform well because they don’t have hands on teachers to help out. So the second month we had our volunteer teachers work with the kids this particular class in one of our schools came out first in state testing. That kind of gave us this feeling that they are not just contributing but it’s boosting the morale and confidence of these kids.

In what way can government and other institutions help in pushing your goals?

One of the challenges faced in these low income areas is infrastructure but as opportunities are given we also introduce the foundation to all the relevant government officials and parastatals as they always lend their support understanding that we are here to help. We also have policies which allow us to show our books at any time where you can see the use of the donations. We also have impact reports that we share with our stakeholders and the public. 

In the next five years what are your projections for the foundation?

We plan to have more schools we would have adopted. We want to see children we have supported move on to bigger and better things in life as this is the main objective of the foundation, improve the lives of the next generation through education and enlightenment. We want to have products of kids in secondary schools and universities telling us thank you and we would want to come back as a volunteer. That’s my projection and also we want to work with the government  on  policies in ensuring education is pivotal.