The Pastor Chris Foundation of the Loveworld Incorporated, Christ Embassy Ministry, Lagos, Nigeria, has in the past 13 years sustained interventionist projects in discovering, mentoring, empowering and inspiring youths in various countries of the African continent in talents and skills development in community services, creativity and productive enterprise without waiting for governments.
From the inception of the project which accommodated millions of applicants or participants, 10 winners often emerge annually from various African countries from the savannah to the Sahara. Each winner receives a grant of $10,000 while the star prize winner gets an additional grant of $15,000, thus, going home with $25,000.
Pastor Chris at the 2021 Future Africa Leaders Award (FALA), funded by the Pastor Chris Oyakhilome Foundation, emphasized the imperative of the interventionist mission of the Christ Embassy Ministry in grooming young Africans for future leadership in the continent, raising hope of home leadership and solutions to African problems by Africans.
Pastor Chris dismissed the wrong perception of African youths as beggars, waiting for handouts for survival. Pastor Chris stated that African youths have talents and skills for production and wealth creation, insisting that they are hardworking and creative. He said that African youths only need the stimulus for creativity and productivity, noting that they can help themselves and do not need handouts. The Pastor maintained that African youths are already doing that, while the Foundation intervenes to fill the gap of frustration or hindrance to the development of African youths in actualizing their potentials.
The Foundation decried the stigma on the African continent as running consumption economy, restricted to production of raw materials for industries in Europe and America, and receiving industrial products from overseas produced from the raw materials exported by African countries at higher costs. The Foundation encourages African youths on adding value to products extracted from the African continent for consumption at home without relying on foreign industries.
The Foundation catches them young and mentors the youths on community intervention services to stimulate productivity and erase poverty, unemployment, and backwardness from the African continent.
Participants come from various countries which include Malawi, Kenya, Cameroon, Nigeria, Togo, South Sudan, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Egypt, Mali, and others.