PROMISE FORNJUM is a Social Entrepreneur and a passionate Community Development Advocate. He holds dual Master degrees; in Management Sciences from the University of Bamenda, Cameroon and in Strategic Leadership Towards Sustainability from Blekinge Institute of Technology, Karlskrona, Sweden, and a Swedish Institute Scholar with a Certification in Self-Leadership Development.  Born in Banso, Bui Division, I spent three-quarter of my life in Noni Sub-Division, a rural community in Bui Division of the Northwest Region of Cameroon.  As the Founder/CEO of LICHA, my motivation/inspiration to create this organization emanates from my childhood, upbringing, and life experiences. The ongoing socio-political crisis plaguing the English-speaking regions of Cameroon has added an impetus to my passion to serve under-served and marginalized population/communities.

As a child, I grew up in a community characterized by acute poverty where children from vulnerable backgrounds dropped out of school for lack of sponsorship. Fortunately for me, I was blessed to have crossed the path of compassionate people who helped finance my education, giving me a stable footing to navigate life.  I watched many young girls drop out of school because of unwanted, unplanned, early pregnancies and being forced into early marriages or unhealthy relationships with men old enough to be their fathers as a source of livelihood. I equally observed young men drop out of school and resort to indecent social activities such as drug addiction, armed robbery, and other social deviances. Having benefited from the benevolence of well -to -do community members, I resolved to emulate their example and create positive and sustainable impacts.

As a National Youth Volunteer on Community Development issues, I moved around rural communities and discovered children, youth from vulnerable backgrounds, and persons with disabilities living under inhumane conditions. I watched widows and single mothers struggling to raise children in very difficult and needy conditions. I watched children die of preventable health conditions as a result of a combination of poverty, lack of medical facilities/ access to medical care and other systemic related issues. In the course of discharging my duty as a teacher, I observed other pertinent problems which hundreds of thousands of young people face, and which hinders them from progressing in life. Prominent among which is lack of proper Career Orientation and Counselling. This led to many young people failing in life, not because of the lack of mental ability, intelligence, physical ability, or sponsorship but because they lack the proper orientation to pursue their dreams based on their potentials. Seeing young persons study what will never help them advance in real life situations prompted me to take career orientation as one of the main interventions in LICHA. In a nutshell, all interventions we undertake at LICHA are based on observed needs and motivate us to forge ahead, because we see tangible changes in real time.