Volunteerism with roots in Nigeria, impact in Alberta
AU MBA grad and prolific volunteer Lilian Amaka Okocha is dedicated to improving her life so she can help create opportunities for others
A young girl growing up in Nigeria in the 1980s is sent on an errand to her uncle’s house. Little does she know that what she sees will have such a profound influence on her life.
She enters the home where her uncle and aunt are watching a program on television. On the screen, a beautiful and articulate woman is speaking.
“She spoke so eloquently,” said Lilian Amaka Okocha (Master of Business Administration ’15). “I looked at her, the way she composed herself, and the language she used. I said, ‘I want to be like her.’”
She remembers her aunt scoffing, saying “You can’t be like her!” The woman’s name was Onyeka Onwenu, a talented and famous musician.
“Says who? I want to be like her, and I will be like her,” she said. “That is God and the Spirit speaking in me.”
Okocha has worked hard to emulate all the things she has admired about Onwenu: eloquence, education, music, and perhaps most significantly, service to others and to the community.
This spirit of service persisted in Okocha through the many different phases of her life—as a child and young woman in Nigeria, as she moved to Athabasca, Alta. as a young mother in 2008, and to this day as a member of the Throne of Mercy Charismatic group and the St. Thomas More Catholic Parish in Edmonton, Alta.
Okocha’s efforts and accomplishments over several decades have earned her Athabasca University’s 2024 Volunteer Service Award, given annually to a graduate who has demonstrated a spirit of volunteering and community service like no other through active, unpaid contributions.
Inspiration to learn and help others
Okocha knew from an early age she wanted a better life, and knew she would need to work hard to provide for herself. As she was working at her education to improve her own circumstances, she also committed herself to helping others.
As a child, the youngest of seven children, Okocha was fostered by her oldest sister and her sister’s husband. Her brother-in-law was a police officer, so they lived together in the barracks with other police officers, soldiers, and their families. This community included people from dozens of different tribes; there are hundreds of different ethnic groups in Nigeria.
Okocha’s neighbours were people from all different parts of the country and from all different walks of life. In a place like that, a child could find some good influences—or plenty of bad ones.
“I chose to take the good things,” she said. “At a very young age, I began to tutor the younger kids in the barracks.”
Overcoming obstacles to get a university degree
Things did not get much easier for Okocha when she moved back to live with her parents at 12 years old. There were still very few resources available to her, and she had to work hard doing farm labour and other jobs to pay her school fees.
When she took her high school exams, a requirement to get into university in Nigeria, she had to take the exams several times before she got marks that would qualify her to attend. She persisted, despite some of her family members teasing her for having to write the exams so many times.
Okocha had also married an unsupportive man during this time, who discouraged her from pursuing an education. That marriage ended after a few years, and she ultimately attended the University of Lagos where she earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. It was at the beginning of that university experience that she met a man who would help change her life.
“That’s the man I’m married to today. He supported me. He gave me everything,” she said. “He supported me academically, and that’s why I was able to go to university.”
I’m a woman of determination, resilience is my second name. Lilian Amaka Okocha (Master of Business Administration ’15)
Volunteerism, from Nigeria to Canada
While she was overcoming challenges to attend university, Okocha remained committed to volunteerism. Others came to look up to her, and she would offer informal personal, financial, and couple’s counselling to members of her community.
She helped create the Throne of Mercy Charismatic group at St. Thomas More, which had started in 2001 in Nigeria as a house fellowship where people would gather to pray on Fridays. Her work, supporting youth in Nigeria through financial assistance while supporting youth in her community through leadership training, has continued in all the communities she has called home.
After she completed a university degree and started a family, Okocha’s husband got a job in telecommunications and moved to northern Alberta. After several months, she joined him with their four young children, the oldest of whom was eight at the time.
“We joined him in Canada and came straight to Athabasca: one of the most beautiful towns I had ever seen in my life,” she said.
While it was not always easy for the family of Black immigrants to fit in, Okocha remained committed to her ideals of self-improvement and to community and helping others. She found meaningful volunteer opportunities in Athabasca, especially supporting youth through the local Catholic church.
Meanwhile, she continued to work with friends and family back in Nigeria to support youth and families there. For example, Okocha would encourage others to “adopt a widow,” which essentially meant taking on some responsibility for Nigerian widows’ children so that they could attend school and make a better life for themselves.
Pursuing an online MBA in service of volunteerism
Shortly after moving to Athabasca, Okocha found contract work with Athabasca University on a digitization project. It was during that time she discovered the opportunity to earn an online MBA, and she set her sights on further education.
It wasn’t easy. To get into the program at the time, a prospective student needed references from a boss. As a new immigrant with little experience in her new role, it was hard to get a reference. Of course, Okocha was never one to turn away from challenge.
“I’m a woman of determination,” she said. “Resilience is my second name.”
She applied, even without having the required references. In her letter of intent, she wrote about her ambitions and the many obstacles in her life she had worked so hard to overcome.
That letter caught the eye of Dr. Deborah Hurst, then dean of the Faculty of Business. Hurst reached out to Okocha saying she wanted to provide her an opportunity to earn a graduate degree. With that support and AU’s commitment to improving access to learning, she was on a path to an MBA.
From the start, Okocha had a vision for how she could use this education to help take her volunteer work to the next level and provide for others the kinds of opportunities she was forced to provide for herself.
“I want to be a CEO one day. I want to have a not-for-profit corporation,” she said. “I want to help those who are struggling, because I struggled, and I could barely get any help.”
Although she left Athabasca for Fort McMurray, and eventually Edmonton where she currently lives, Okocha continued to work hard to earn her degree while also working hard as a volunteer.
AU grad remains committed to community, volunteerism
Having now finished her MBA, Okocha continues to dedicate her time to things that so inspired her about Onyeka Onwenu’s work—continuing education, making music, and service to others.
As a member of the St. Thomas More Catholic Parish in Edmonton, Okocha continues to provide leadership education to youth in her community.
“When I came there, I paid attention to the children. I didn’t stop,” she said. “I want to teach them to be leaders.”
She uses her home to provide leadership training for youth, focusing on helping them develop the habits and skills that will allow them to be successful in their own lives. And from the anecdotal feedback she receives from her students and their parents, the work she’s doing is making a big difference in many lives, with others asking her how they too can take part.
Okocha also travels internationally to provide leadership training through her company, Platinum Plus Consultants Ltd. Most recently, she travelled to Ghana to provide this kind of training.
And in keeping with the inspiration Onwenu provided, Okocha continues to create art—whether through fashion design, gospel music, or a book she has finished and expects to be published later in 2024.
All these accomplishments show there is truth in the advice Okocha gives to others: find your strengths and put in the work to leverage them.
“Ask yourself, what are you good at? Create another world for yourself and start working on it.”
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