With the increasing societal challenges befalling young adults in Nigeria, concerned Nigerians and organizations like Polished Pillars Foundation (PPF) is in the front burner, championing the course of adding value to life and Society by helping teenagers discover, develop, release and maximize their God given potential. Live as gifts and positive change agents in the Society and their generation.

The foundation established by Mrs. Chioma Emma-Nwachukwu, focuses on building exemplary leaders in teenagers by integrating the virtues of character, faith, talent and resourcefulness.

Recently Esther Onyegbula had a chat with the founder of PPF and the coordinator of Teesureon and she shares her experience working with young adults.

What is the foundation all about?

In a nutshell, polished pillar foundation, have the vision of raising exemplary leaders that will make a difference by impacting their generation positively. Partnering with credible private organizations and well-meaning individuals, the foundation has organize life changing seminars, retreats and trainings which is helping young adults make the right choices in life.

What year did you establish the foundation and what inspired you?

Chioma Emma-Nwachukwu

The foundation started in 2009; it was inspired by passion and purpose.

What is the teenager summer retreat all about?

Teenager summer retreat is one of the activities of polished pillars foundation. We have Saturday meetings with children but the summit is a more robust, detailed, comprehensive way of interacting with them. It gives us more opportunity of grooming them, training them, staying with them and better understand them in a more relaxed atmosphere.

So what is the significance of this retreat in terms of their educational performance?

If you look at the activities that we have done it is tailored to the overall educational development of the children. Also we have specific activities targeted at academic excellence. They are taught best method of studying their books, how to effectively use the internet and other academic related issues.

What inspired the theme of this summit “understanding purpose”?

Each year we choose different theme, the theme understanding purpose, is to help children understand their life purpose at an early age. Like Miles Morose said, when purpose is not known abuse is inevitable. When a child does not understand purpose he goes to school everyday nothing have a focus or know where he or she is going.

This is the fourth edition of this summit, would you say over the years you have been able to achieve the vision of this summit?

Teesure is a growing concern, we cannot say we have gotten it all, but there are definitely things that are encouraging us. For instance the progress we have recorded over the years in terms of the development and success stories of our participants, in different areas that they find themselves, they standout.

How do children get to participate in this summit?

For participation we sometimes have our fliers with all necessary information, we also have the foundation website where people can always login and get necessarily details of upcoming events. We also send out this information through schools, our fliers are distributed in different schools.

Do you get parental consent from parents before their children can participate?

We make sure that every child that participate in the summit get the endorsement of the parents, so that they don’t see this as an avenue of running away from home. The parents must endorse and bring them so we know that they are coming from their parents.

What are your major areas of concentration in impacting the lives of these children?

The major area of concern, when you read the papers you get to read a lot of worrisome vices young children engage in, we are looking at a new Nigeria, we are clamoring for better and more quality life and these are the people that could deliver that to us because they are the future of tomorrow and the earlier they realize and understand they have a role in all of these and transformation of our nation, the better for us all. So we are grooming them for the future.

Why doesn’t the foundation reach out to more public schools?

We have students from different public and private schools, the participants of the summit cut across all schools, in Lagos and Ogun state.

Have the foundation faced any challenges in terms of having participant from different religious background?

Having participants from different religious setting has not caused any challenge; for now none to the best of my knowledge. Children from different religious background, participate in the summit because all we are concerned about is moving them forward by inculcating in them the right virtues. Having the right virtues is accepted by all irrespective of their religious background.

What are you educational background?

I have a nursing and midwifery background after that I studied human nutrition from the University of Ibadan for my first degree. And for my maters degree, I studied business administration to boost my business skills.

I work with Nestle as a scientific and external affairs manger.

What is the future of foundation?

In the long term we want polished pillars to be seen the household name when it comes to bringing up teenagers. We want the foundation to have made impact in every home and outside Nigeria.