Kafui and Etornam
ASSOCIATE STORIES
Inspiring young people on the Patmore Estate
Kafui is the CEO of FAST London – a youth organisation supporting young people on the Patmore Estate in Battersea. FAST’s vision is a community where young people grow up with a healthy sense to trust, resilience and hope for the future. They create a sense of belonging for children and young people with positive relationships and safe spaces from them to gather.
Living out the mantra people don't care what you know until they know how much you care, FAST use a relational approach to support the development of young people for a future where they stay in school and succeed, stay out of gangs and criminality, and become role models for the next generation. They also provide an opportunity for young people to explore the Christian faith in a safe non-judgement way.
Mission Housing were approached by FAST’s previous CEO, Kerry, in 2014. She knew that if the organisation was going to be successful, it needed to be as embedded into the community as possible – so she wanted to live in the heart of the community. Thanks to a number of lenders who stepped forward to lend Mission Housing money, we were able to purchase a property that Kerry could then rent – affordably.
In 2019, when Kerry moved on, and Kafui became CEO, he took over the tenancy, ensuring that the leadership of FAST continued to be embedded in the community. Kafui and Etornam got married during lockdown in 2020, and together, they are now committed to living and serving the community of the Patmore Estate.
Living on the estate proved essential during the COVID-19 lockdown of 2020. It meant that FAST could play a pivotal role in bringing local stakeholders together to solve the challenges that families were facing during the pandemic. This included getting a food charity to provide fresh food for families and hot meals for isolated residents. Working with ‘Power to Connect’ to overcome digital poverty – giving laptops that had been donated and refurbished laptops to children so they could participate in online school lessons. And collecting and distributing art packs to local school children to encourage creativity and maintain good wellbeing.
“In a year where the organisation was facing immense pressure to survive, Mission Housing provided an opportunity to live locally enabling us to strengthen community links to improve the impact of the work we do as an organisation, whilst helping me to develop a much healthier quality of life. This was vital to helping FAST build better local partnership to achieve our vision.”
