Dr. Komi Semenou Folly, was born in Togo, Africa and grew up in a family of 6 brothers and 4 sisters.  He was fortunate to have been surrounded by loving parents that provided adequate nourishment, understood the importance of school, and taught him about hard work, love for others, and honesty. Poverty, illiteracy and the lack of adequate health care caused the loss of many of his friends and family, including the loss of his own father from a preventable asthma attack. As an 11-year-old boy, he had already witnessed poverty, devastation, and death. Because of this, he dreamed of helping people. He wrote inside the cover of his Bible that he was going to become a doctor.

 

Komi went to school in a small town in Togo from Pre-K to graduation, then went on to graduate from the University of Lomé, Togo in 2002. He speaks Mina, Ewe, French, and English fluently. He later moved to the US where he attended the University of OU - Tulsa, to become a US physician.  Now Dr. Folly is a full-time Internist at Saint Francis and works as a hospitalist at Saint John Hospital ICU. 

 

In 2011, Komi returned to Togo to visit an NGO, Global Pad, that he had been supporting financially.  During the visit to his home country, his internal calling to help his people became very strong. He met a woman that was ready to give birth. Her husband had been killed months earlier in an accident. The time came for her to give birth, but complications from a ruptured uterine artery causing a massive bleed. In a U.S. hospital, the condition would have been serious, but handled by an OB/GYN surgical team. In Togo, the story is markedly different. Conditions that are easily handled in the U.S. are the opposite in Togo. The clinic where this woman was did not have the basic equipment to save her life. The 20-minute window to save her became a time of helplessness, The staff had to stand there and watch her bleed out from child birth. In 20-minutes her new born child became an orphan. During that time Dr. Folly found the Bible that he had written in as a child of 11, some 30 years earlier. The note stated the simple thoughts of a child that became a physician, to always help the people of Togo. A year later in 2012, Dr. Folly created Light in the World Development Foundation. Today, LWDF partners with the Togolese government to improve the lives of people living in Togo.  

 

Now that the building blocks of health care, education and clean water have begun to stabilize the community, LWDF continues to look forward. The plan now is to create a sustainable process that can be duplicated in any community, so that the people of Africa can sustain life on their own. LWDF wants to be the light in the world by sharing the Light of the world.