Our Story
Working Towards a Better Tomorrow
Dealing with the challenges of today requires problem-solvers who bring different perspectives and are willing to make sacrifices. The Salu Oniha Okonofua Foundation emerged out of a desire to inspire and support the community against illiteracy, youth restiveness and underachievement, poverty, and inadequate access to healthcare. Established in 2014, we are an organization driven by empathy, passion, and bold actions. We aim for our actions to speak louder than words and are committed to building strong, resilient communities.
The Okonofua Foundation
Welcomes You!
Dear Fellow Citizens,
When we were growing up and becoming young adults, our father once took three of us, his oldest boys, to the back of our house. Wondering what he appeared so pensive about, we waited with trepidation and excitement as he handed each of us a broomstick from the bunch he held in his hands. Then he instructed each of us to break the stick, which we did effortlessly. Next, he handed each of us, one at a time, the big bunch he held and asked us to break it. We tried with all the strength we could muster, but failed. Finally, he asked the three of us, together, to break the bunch, but we could not. There and then he delivered his verdict, a lesson, in fact. Individually, we are limited by our own strengths and weaknesses and may not be able to withstand adversaries and adversities. But together, we are strong, each pulling on the strength of the other. So strong, that we will be impregnable to the enemy, individually and collectively.
Our father’s advice has helped us through life’s many journeys. We have encountered adversities and surmounted them by our individual and collective will. We have also encountered adversaries, individuals, institutions, and processes that have challenged our capacities for good. But with our father’s provocative advice, we have remained undaunted, strong, and fired up about life’s many challenges and blessings.
Today, our father’s sage advice many decades ago, is the impetus for our life’s work of commitment to our community, knowing that individually, we are weak, but together as a community, we are strong and can overcome any challenge, be it related to our health, education, entertainment, economic subsistence, or environment. We are committed to partnering with individuals and groups in our communities and around the world, to make our communities stronger, safer, and more prosperous and our people healthier, wealthier, and happier. We hope to achieve this through focused commitment to four issues: health, education, entrepreneurship, and sports and recreation.
Our goal is to contribute to the development, evolution, and implementation of innovative ideas that will help to transform our communities and make them better for our people. Although we recognize the enormous challenges that our people and communities face and the typically inadequate attention that our governments and big businesses pay to these challenges, we realize that we cannot deal with all the issues that undermine the happiness of our people. This means that many projects that we should support will be neglected. But for those projects that we support, we promise our full commitment to make them work. While they may not work as we hope or the outcomes we expect may suffer delay, we will continue to support programs that help the community and hope that in the end, our goal of a safer, more open, happier, and healthier community will be achieved.
Join us to make our communities better.
Signed: Eni Okonofua, MD
Chairman, SOOF Board