An interview with Ebere Okonkwo

Can please share your name and where are you from?

Ebere Okonkwo is a native of Awgu Enugu state, Nigeria. She currently lives in Lagos Nigeria. By reason of education, she had her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).

What are you passionate about?

She is most passionate about people’s mental health – hers far-fetched, as well as those she can reach. Her reasons for this are not very far-fetched as she grew up having to deal and battle with all kinds of psychological and emotional challenges. Having to go through all those alone without any help from anyone, no matter how good the intentions were this did not make it any easy.

Having grown and developed to a point where she has found her feet, still finding her feet. She lives and breathes to ensure that no one, not one person especially young women go through the same challenges that she went through, not if she can help!

This one passionate dream and aim is what spurred her into entrepreneurship. The desire to provide an easily accessible platform where people, especially those who would under normal circumstances be unable to access such, can access quality mental health care. This platform is found at www.mycarebuddy.org .

She hopes that gradually and steadily, more and more people would be reached. In addition, the number of people being forced to face various life’s situations and challenges all alone. No matter how composed and fine they appear to the outside world,this would drastically reduce.

What do you do for a living?

She is the founder of Mycarebuddy – www.mycarebuddy.org which is an online platform that provides mental health care and consultation to individuals by connecting them with psychological experts and counselors. These services come at very, almost unbelievably affordable prices and in different languages!

How did Covid 19 affect you? (entrepreneur, student, employee or unemployed)

The disruptive emergence of Covid-19 brought a lot of change to almost everything, if not everything.

Ranging from the new normal of virtual experiences – both of work and worship, to the actual devastating effects of loss of loved ones to the unforgiving arms of the virus.

There was practically no warning of any kind before the sweeping eruption of the pandemic. It has left the economy in shambles as many people were placed out of jobs, businesses crumbled, etc. The emotional and psychological effects of these happenings on people cannot be over emphasized.

Loss of one’s source of income is more than enough reason to lead to depression in affected persons. Forced isolation from friends and families, especially during the heightened period of total lockdown did not play so well with the mental health of various individuals.

However, during all these, different factors have arisen. More people are beginning to re-evaluate life and the things that truly matter, in this case – live, good health and family. We are beginning to see that the excesses and extravagance of the past are unnecessary.

How has Covid 19 impacted your mental state?

“Personally, the pandemic took me by surprise. Something that started as just a random news online swept all over the globe placing people in fear in its wake, including myself. Frankly, I do not mind the forced isolation part because I am already a very reserved person who does not consider being indoors a big deal. Only this time, there was a sense of criticality to this because it was being enforced by the government and affected everyone possible.

Also, as at the time, I was not under a paid employment so I would not say that the covid-19 pandemic affected my employment. On the other hand, I was already at the early stage of developing my company – Mycarebuddy. The pandemic and restriction of movement afforded me a lot of time to concentrate more and arrive at where we are at today”.

Where to from here. How do you view the world and the new normal?

“Currently, the present or new normal is many people have come to appreciate the power of technology, ranging from virtual meetings, virtual conferences, virtual worship, virtual everything. This trend has come to stay for a very long time even after we say final goodbyes to covid-19, I believe”.

Contact details

For further contact, Ebere’s personal details are as follows:

EMAIL – ebymary.okonkwo@gmail.com  

Facebook – Ebere D’unique Okonkwo

LinkedIn – Ebere Okonkwo

Twitter/Instagram – @timeswithebere

Mycarebuddy

Mycarebuddy can be reached at the following handles:

EMAIL – we.care@mycarebuddy.org  

Facebook – @mycarebuddyng

LinkedIn /Instagram /Twitter – @mycarebuddy

Visit the website at www.mycarebuddy.org