Emily Miki makes giants strides in social entrepreneurship

By Simon Kalla Ndive
Emilia Epeti Miki, Founder and CEO of Denis Miki Foundation, is known for wearing many hats but she has distinguished herself in working to develop poor and underdeveloped communities through capacity building, education, talent promotion and wealth creation through her organisation.
As an Associate Fellow of The Royal Commonwealth Society, a World Pulse Voices of Our Future Leader and the Female National Peace Ambassador of NewSETA-NED REPAIR, she has a vision to connect women and girls to their capacities, engage them in community and volunteering activities, build vibrant gender equitable communities where all can realize their full potential.
As a social entrepreneur she works to reduce poverty, hunger, unemployment, inequalities, improve health and education through economic empowerment, mentorship and coaching. She currently facilitates capacity building trainings, women and youth empowerment trainings, community and rural development outreach programs.

Her programs and outreach have substantially impacted over 7,000 youths, 1,500 women and has made it possible for her to receive invitations to facilitate more training through partnership with other organisations.
Through the Denis Miki Foundation, Emily Miki, as she is fondly called, has mentored many youths on starting their own ventures, and sharing best experiences and methods on how to grow and scale those ventures to impact those in their communities. These earned her a spot as one of the leaders selected for the Mandela Washington Fellowship programme.
Amongst the numerous projects she is currently working on, Emily cited the Power Up Cameroon project which provides Solar Electricity to villages in Cameroon without electricity, VacAware project which provides up-to-date information about vaccinations, their importance for a healthy lifestyle and disease prevention, CrArts 4 Keeps project to promote Crafts and Arts work of local individuals in International markets through skill acquisition trainings, production of Made In Cameroon craft products and marketing to an international market.

According to Emily, The Mandela Washington Fellowship was a platform to connect young African leaders like herself to the right people and companies to increase the impact of their work.
“The value the Fellowship has added to my work is immeasurable because I was able to meet with talented individuals from Africa, US and beyond with shared vision and ideas and I am looking forward to working with them in implementing innovative solutions to problems”, Emily told The SUN.
The fruits of the Fellowship include; the recent sponsorship, from the National Seed Fund, of our Food 4 Health program through a 2017 Cameroonian Fellow, Thierry Kammi, in partnership with Women in Alternative Action in the fight against Child Marriage in Cameroon and in collaboration with the U.S Embassy at the University of Buea.
According to Emily, the impact of the Fellowship is manifold, evidenced by the many opportunities it has exposed her to, including a partnership she is working with Invictus Institute USA to provide quality education to orphans and less privileged children in Cameroon from the USA through the internet.
“I am also currently working with Children’s Hunger Alliance, Ohio to implement a Food Bank project in Cameroon and with Black Swamp Arts Festival, Bowling Green to launch a yearly Arts Festival in Cameroon” she added.
Emilia Miki founded the Denis Miki Foundation in December 2013 in memory of her late father Denis Tamufor Miki at the tender age of 13.
“My world fell apart when he left us with nothing to hold onto but ourselves. Anyone who knew us thought we were not going to make it. I can’t count how many times people stopped me on the road saying how sorry they were that my mom had died after my dad and they were not available to attend the funeral. My 8-year-old sister and I pulled ourselves together to overcome the challenges of life”, Emilia added.
Through the help of some close family members, holiday jobs and scholarships the siblings were able to acquire an education and are now using the Denis Miki Foundation to help other children, youth and women who find themselves in a similar situation.
According to Emily, her greatest success story is starting a non-profit organization and engaging in projects while still a self-sponsored student.
“Starting up without a franc and being a student at the time, I had to overcome a lot of financial and personal obstacles, a family that depended solely on me while trying to reach out to the needs of other less privileged people (children, girls and women)
Emilia plans on opening offices of the organisation in some African countries like Nigeria, Rwanda and Uganda. She is also presently working on launching our VacAware project in Uganda.