The Achieve Foundation’s mission is from compassion to action.

MOST of us are lucky to have the chances, opportunities, and even the life we do. The fact that we are not subjected to the countless harsher hands life has to deal with is easy to overlook. There are moments, memorials, and people who remind us how lucky we are and how much we can do to help. This is the founding idea behind the Achieve Foundation.

When Saleema Haniff was in high school, she and her friends set off to an orphanage as part of an attempt at extracurricular activities. This experience changed her mindset and thinking and gave rise to a foundation that champions one of the most wholesome causes.

The Achieve Foundation
When a young Saleema and her friends visited Joshua’s home while in high school, she could never have imagined that it would leave as big an impact as it did. Twenty-eight-year-old Saleema started Achieve almost 12 years ago during her time in high school, but it has only taken off and became official just over five years ago.

Saleema and Achieve work with donations and good-spirited volunteers to offer academic help to orphaned children living in Guyana. When Saleema was a young girl, she took note of the unique struggles children in homes face compared to herself. As she shared, “I realised these children needed a lot of academic help. So, every week, my friends would go back and teach them every Sunday. As I kept going to the orphanage, I kept seeing the same problem. That these kids did not have any lessons or so, like I was lucky to have, to help push them academically.”

Saleema saw the issue and sought to fix it. She explained that it goes far beyond help in school, but the lack of educational support can profoundly affect someone’s entire life. According to Saleema, Achieve is working to give children the skills necessary to strive in school and at least the basic skills needed to make it in the world.

She shared that, “I knew some of these children were not strong academically. And I would wonder if they got a job when they left the home and these sorts of things. And I thought that maybe they just needed a little bit of help academically so that when they leave the orphanage, they have something, like CXC’s, to help them go and find a job.” With that in mind, Saleema set out to equip those less fortunate than herself with the knowledge she hoped would give them a good start.

Achieve’s Impact
The Achieve Foundation has worked with several orphanages around Guyana and has helped countless children, the exact number Saleema could not recall. But in six years of service across multiple orphanages, it is safe to say that they have helped a couple of hundred children get a better academic head start in life. Saleema shared that, “We have volunteers, people who say they would like to tutor a child, and we would match them with whatever academic level they are comfortable with. We would find a student that needs help in the orphanage, and they would tutor them every Sunday.”

Although Achieve’s primary focus is that of education, the foundation also emphasises other aspects. Psychological help and skills training are also areas where Achieve works with children. Counselling, in particular, has become a major part of Achieve. Saleema explained that most children in orphanages deal with immense psychological issues. Saleema shared, “We have the counselling aspect of it. Something that we noticed is that the children often need some type of psychological help; they have all been through trauma.”

Seeing a need, Saleema sought to find a solution. She and her small team set out to garner psychological help for the children Achieve worked with. She expressed that there have been some issues in this field, but Achieve is now equipped with two trained child psychiatrists. The foundation has made countless other strides across different fields. Over the years, Saleema has taken it upon herself to forge relationships and encourage other people to join the cause. A few years ago, Saleema partnered with the First Lady. This is just a small step in what Saleema hopes Achieve can do.

Achieve’s Next steps
Throughout the years, Saleema cited the success stories of children as her motivation to keep going. From children who surpassed academic expectations to those who excelled in one skill or another, Achieve and the people behind it have worked tirelessly to give orphaned children a better chance at life. As someone who has spent as much time as Saleema has in orphanages, she noted the issues facing the orphanages could be fixed with the attention of people and the consideration of people at large.