A Sierra Leonean lecturer visiting the Faith Foundation Organization in the ELWA Community, outside Monrovia, has challenged young people and others aspiring for leadership in their respective locales to practice in the home, community, and local organizations before going nationwide or global.
Teddy Foday Musa, whose life sketch shows humble beginning and endurance in contending with life challenges says, “Leadership is about influence, and how one can get people to follow them, which is exactly what I am looking forward to and once we engage the participants, they would not be the same again, because they will take over ethics of leadership.”
According to Mr. Musa, his aspiration to join the Faith Foundation Organization came when the organization was conducting an outreach sometimes last year in the United States on the importance of leadership. This was a time he had begun his leadership work since 2008 and had spoken to many Africans.
He urged participants to exercise humility if their followers can trust and accept them because those following will be the direct replicas of a leader. He said a leader’s success is not measured by the wealth he/she gains, but how well he leads a group to meet the goals and objectives of an organization or group; whether family or community members.
Leadership, Musa says, requires a preparation from various strata of orientations; parental, environmental, religious, and or academic, all of which help to brand a person’s character.
He said because of the various orientations one needs to have, he/she cannot just grasp leadership with anxiety, but has to be prepared in an acceptable way and should be able to convince his/her followers by proving the capabilities and attributes of good leadership.
Musa is currently a lecturer in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Fourah Bay College. He is also a PhD candidate, pursuing his doctoral degree in Peace and Conflict Studies at the School of Post-graduate Studies–University of Sierra Leone.
His contribution to Peace in Sierra Leone started way back in 1993 during the early days of the civil war. As a student at FBC in the 90s, he was a volunteer, working for an international organization known as the World Peace Prayers Society (WPPS).
His contributions to peace during the Sierra Leonean civil war led him to be appointed the first Country Peace Representative by the World Peace Prayer Society (WPPS). He became the first country Peace Representative of the WPPS based in that country.
The Faith Foundation’s conference also sees other inspiring speakers with records of accomplishment; one of who is Mohammed Sirhan, a Palestinian born refugee in the occupied West Bank.
As a physically challenged person, Sirhan said: “I had raised funds for people with disability in Darfur, where I provided the Club with Wheelchairs, the sound system for the blind where they can hear the recording of books recorded by volunteers; I provided them Braille plates.”
He implements a program that takes care of the disabled and activates and monitors the laws of the disabled; started changing the way people look at people with disability, modifying buildings to be accessible for the disabled; cooperating with the Arab Labor Organization and professional associations on decent work for people with disabilities.
He Lectured in Turin Italy on disability and economic and social adjustment, Training of Trainers (TOT) in networking; advocacy with Handicap International, President of the Sarhan Association, one of the founders of the Arab Organization for the Rights of people with disability; steering member of the Shadow Law group in Jordan regarding on Disabled Persons under the United Nations.
He is an international classifier at IWBF the International Wheelchair Basketball Foundation and Vice president of the Future Club for Handicap 2008-2011.
The Organizer for the leadership Conference is the Faith Foundation, a Charitable Based Non-Government Organization operating in Liberia / Africa. It was founded by Paul Sky Berry and His wife Mrs. Aminata Donia Berry in 2009 as a charity foundation with a focus to sponsor and empower underprivileged children from families in remote locations.
He said Faith Foundation international speakers tailor the course and teach how to apply a perfect strategy for every manager/leader and occasion they may face.