5 MINUTES WITH ANTONIA ALLY

Meet antonia ally, the Managing director and Ceo of “the How Foundation”, a non-profit organisation founded by dr. herbert Wigwe, the Md/Ceo of access Bank in January 2016 with special focus on Malaria, Prostate Cancer, youth leadership and Mentorship. armed with over five years of sales and Marketing experience in the profit sector, antonia is a seasoned professional with a B.sc. degree in Business Management and Marketing from Brunel University, United Kingdom. in this interview she speaks to Konye Chelsea Nwabogor on the day-to-day activities of the HOW Foundation and its goals and visions.

How did you get involved with the how Foundation?

I became involved with The HOW foundation in 2016 when the founder, dr Herbert Wigwe decided it was the right time to launch his own foundation. He has always been very involved in charity work, so this was an opportunity to make it official.

What is the goal of the program?

We have three causes we are into; Malaria eradication, Prostrate Cancer Awareness and youth empowerment. So far we have programs around youth empowerment and Malaria such as motivational seminars, scholarship programs and Malaria outreach where we distribute mosquito nets and medicines.

What results have you achieved so far in its over one year of existence?

So far we have managed to reach over 2,000 families in remote areas within Nigeria and over 3,000 youths through our empowerment programs.

How is foundation funded?

The foundation generates it’s own funding. As for the management and leadership structure; we have our creator at the top, He guides us in everything we do. Then we have the founder, the directors and myself as a Managing director. We also have our part-time staff and contract staff who are amazing, they go above and beyond ensuring everything we do is successful, and we have a small but reliable number of volunteers.

What do you see as the biggest challenges in nigeria today, particularly those where the Foundation can make a difference?

The biggest challenge in Nigeria today is mindset. Mindset controls everything we do, how we think, how we react to situations and how we see life. Take for example clogging of drainages, people would drink from a sachet or from a bottle and throw it on the streets, we see this everyday, without disposing of them properly, with time the drainages get blocked, when it rains there is a flood, people walk in the flood, they are susceptible to all sorts of dangerous waterborne diseases including malaria, we are over 200 million and majority of us have the mindset of “it’s not my business,”It is blatant in everything we do as a country, we push all responsibility to the government. As a foundation, we want to change the mindset of people. They have to understand the cleanliness of the environment is 70/30, 70 percent is our responsibility, not to litter, not to block drainages, to dispose of waste the correct way, 30 percent is the responsibility of the government to remove the waste we have properly disposed of, the mindset that we can litter, block drainages then the government would come and clean up our mess is a wrong one and it can and should be corrected. I believe that mindset can change and it takes those who have an alternative mindset to take the time to explain to others. The mindset that discussing Breast Cancer as something to be ashamed of a decade ago has changed, people speak on it freely now, and we want the same for Prostrate Cancer.

What sets the how Foundation apart from other non-profit organisations?

We have thousands of nonprofits in Nigeria so it is a tricky question but something I have noticed that sets us apart from most is, we indirectly represent a demographic in Nigeria that is very much under-valued and under-rated, the young Nigerian female. The youths make up over half of the Nigerian population, and young women are also the majority within the youth population, Nigeria is slowly beginning to embrace the idea of empowering young men and empowering women, but it seems empowering young women is an idea for the distant future, indirectly our foundation takes pride in empowering young women, a practice that is very normal in highly developed nations. empowering women earlier means they are able to gain the right economic and environmental experiences to instill on their children from early. Indirectly, from myself to partners, we try as much as possible to support young women, which is something that isn’t yet a norm but will be compulsory eventually.

What are your goals for the next three to five years?

My goal for the organisation in the next 3-5 years is to create its structure; we need to be able to have a structure that outlines the different causes and how we intend to effectively tackle them. So for example, under Malaria we have found that our trips to the villages are very successful, the people there learn a lot. This is the type of structure I am talking about, being able to design programs that would ensure that we make impact in peoples lives. let’s say we just went to the villages and handed out free mosquito nets,

"Empowering women earlier means they are able to gain the right economic and environmental experiences to instill on their children from early. indirectly, from myself to partners, we try as much as possible to support young women, which is something that isn’t yet a norm but will be compulsory eventually. "

this would not have been an effective structure because we realised that half of the people we come across with in these villages do not know how to use them and many couldn’t be bothered, so many people did not understand how effective such a tool was in preventing malaria. We want to develop effective structures under each of our causes and within three years we should have fully established these structures. A tool in helping us achieve them has always been having a partner on ground. I live in lagos, if I wanted to do some work in kaduna for example, it is very important I have someone on ground to make the process quicker. There are those cultural differences you need to adapt to, just to make sure your message is the focus, so a helping factor has always been having people on ground to assist us with our goals. In regards to barriers, the people themselves can sometimes be barriers, I think there is misguided expectations and also trust issues amongst people, we are a nonprofit, non-governmental organisation, this says it all. We have to convince the people we are not present for political reasons, somehow politics always sneaks into it. Many villages have their own internal politics also, we have had an experience where we visited a village with two traditional rulers in opposition and because of this, we were not really able to effectively serve the people, we had to reach out door-to-door to encourage people to come out for their own sake.

You seem so passionate about this organisation and it’s mission?

I would love to say it is because I am a passionate person, which does play a part but I have to say I have been blessed to have a mentor, who is also the founder of the organisation and is a very passionate human being. If you have had the privilege to meet with dr Herbert oneon-one, his passion is very contagious. He is passionate about his church, his family, his work and his humanitarian interests. He has taught me that passion is what makes us humans; it’s what makes us alive, it keeps us going. If we are not passionate about something are we really living to our full potential, passion is what motivates us to strive for excellence.

What does an average workday consist of for you?

I spend a lot of time in front of the computer doing research, sending out emails, and creating proposals. These things need to be done to develop a structure.