Every year, thousands of dignitaries especially entertainers from all walks of life look forward to the annual celebration in the United Kingdom of the popular global Black Entertainment Film Fashion Television and Arts Awards better known as BEFFTA.
The event which is always colourful and full of razzmatazz is the only event in the league of the Black Entertainment award (BET award) of the United States.
However, not many know the story or the person behind the success story. For the first time, Prof. Dr. Pauline Long tells her inspiring story of determination and hard work which made her what she is today.
She is a woman of many parts and many firsts. She is the first black person to own a film studio in the UK where the likes of Burna Boy, Stormzy, among many others have used in shooting their music videos; the first black person to organize the first East African beauty pageant the brain behind the recent successful Commonwealth Business awards, among others.
Apart from her Pauline Long Entrepreneurship Foundation where she caters for orphans in six African countries as well as the elderly and vulnerable, she is also the ambassador for over 30 charities scattered all over the world.
With over 400 awards and counting, the, author, TV host, movie producer and director, journalists, entrepreneur and philanthropist who believes so much in giving, hinted of her passion and calling to extend her expertise and experience to her home country of Kenya to serve the people as their president.
Enjoy, the inspiring story of a Kenyan who came to the UK to study, then started off as a chamber maid to become a Guest Relations manager and now, a sensational international brand with the most award by any African in the UK.
My story
I was born in Kenyan with 10 other siblings, so we are 11. I am the 6th born. Thank God we are all still alive, my mother and father still around. I was brought up in a family where we were taught to work very hard. My parents worked extremely hard. When I came to the UK as an African being asked if I lived on top of trees, in mud thatched houses, I tell them no, I don’t know what you are talking about. I had a beautiful life in Kenya. The only thing I saw around my parents is them working hard, doing businesses one after the other. And that is what I and my siblings knew and know till today. We work hard. We came from nothing to something.
On the other hand, I am a philanthropist – that I learnt from my late grandfather who always had an open door policy letting everybody into his home, to come and eat and helping many people as much as possible. I learnt that from the age of 6 that you are here on earth not just for yourself but you are here for other people as well. As an entrepreneur, I make the money, as a philanthropist, I give it back.
I am a patron for over 30 charities but I also have my Pauline Long Entrepreneurship Foundation in six African countries where I support the youth through Dr Pauline Long Football tournament, I pay school fees for about 150 orphans in Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, Congo, Zimbabwe and we also support widows and the elderly women because I did find out that in our continent, there is no much love given to those who are ageing, the old are left in their homes by themselves. I have a team especially in Kenya and we have 68 women that we have been taking care of for about 8 years. The team regularly visits these elderly women. We give them monthly supplies, pocket money and just check that they are okay. When they are not well, we take them to the hospital. Really and truly, I am first and foremost a philanthropist.
When I came to the UK my journey was quite interesting because I started off as a chamber maid. I came to study but you have to make money here and there. I started out quite low as a chamber maid, cleaning rooms and making beds, cleaning the toilet in hotel rooms. It was quite interesting. I didn’t regret doing that. I would do it again because I love to clean. That inspired me to work hard and to climb. By the time I finished working in the hotel industry, in the hospitality, I was a guest relations manager in leading wide hotels, I worked in hotels like the Mandarin Oriental where the Queen of England always visited. I remember one time when I was part of the team that welcomed the queen in the hotel. The hotel industry gave me access to meeting a lot of celebrities; I met people like Jackie Chan, the boxing legend, Chris Eubank. I gained a special interest for celebrities and that’s how I got into managing celebrities. I then started the Pauline Long Management where I was managing celebrities. I finished working in the hotel industry and at the time I met my husband and I became a full time mother.
I had to stop working in the hotel industry, 9 to 5. Becoming a full time mother is probably the best thing I ever did. I stayed at home for about 11 years with the children. Being a full time mother is not easy and I thought about children in Africa that didn’t have mothers or help, they basically lived on the street. I was motivated to start the first East African beauty pageant in the UK and Europe, the Mr. and Miss East Africa UK which I ran for about 10 years and it covered about 13 countries – Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, and the rest. I encouraged the youth to become entrepreneurs and philanthropists. I mentored them and together with my husband, we fund-raised four children that lived on the street to the pageant. I then started a campaign called, Shout Campaign which was the campaign for feeding children that live on the street. The biggest campaign was in Uganda where we fed over 1400 children in just one week. That was incredible but it was also quite sad to see that there are so many children living on the streets. We carried on the programme for a while and the sponsorship was very tight, there was no sponsorship. We were funding all these activities. I was doing the pageant, the venues were quite expensive but I still needed to do the pageant. I went on a journey to find properties that my husband and I could buy and so we could turn it to a venue. It was really hard to find but we kept looking. In the meantime, while doing the pageant, I had so much support from entertainers, artistes, comedians, choreographers, presenters that hosted the show – there was a lot of support. I realized that these people were so talented but there was no award ceremony that was celebrating them so I started the BEFFTA awards, (Black Entertainment Film Fashion Television and Arts Awards). In 2009, I started it to encourage people in the industry to keep carrying on and today BEFFTA 15 years, we are ultimately the biggest black award ceremony in the UK and Europe where we had thousands of people attending. I fully funded it. To date, I and my family had spent nearly 400,000 pounds on BEFFTA for 15 years. For me, that is a way of giving back because BEFFTA is still going on because people always ask, how come I don’t charge tickets for BEFFTA or make money from BEFFTA, I’m losing out and all that but I keep telling them that this is God’s calling. God told me not to collect money from people. Of course, I do other awards, the Business Award which people have to pay. But with BEFFTA, it is purely giving back. It will remain that way. Today people know me for BEFFTA, people thank me. They are very grateful.
BEFFTA covers all the Caribbean, African and Asian countries. These two big events meant I have to look for venues every year. We came across one place in 2010. I remember my husband said the place was too derelict, we can’t use this place but I told him I will turn that place to something else – a film studio and that is what we did. In 2010, I gave birth to my first film studio. I am the first black person in the UK to own a film studio, my first client was Reebok and to date, I have run four film studios in London. Most people didn’t know that I ran studios, they kept on wondering how I get funding, it is from the studios that I built and I had clients like Netflix, Amazon, BBC, Channel 4, Channel 5 and more. As an entrepreneur, I make the money and as a philanthropist, I give it back to the community. The studio was not just a business, the studio was also that platform that I used in giving young and upcoming artistes the opportunity to film their music videos. A lot of them couldn’t afford to pay. We gave them a lot of free studio space and time. People like Stormzy who is quite big now. I supported him. Till today he still calls me sis. People like Burna Boy have shot in my film studios. The journey in building the film studios wasn’t easy but as I said earlier, I saw my mother and father work hard. For everything that they owned, they literally worked for it.
While running the film studios, I decided to transition as well to look at other industries. I then went into the property business. In the beginning, it was quite strange. In-between, I became a journalist. I used to write for the African News. I was their UK representative. I also used to write for a Ugandan magazine, as sub editor. Over the years, I contribute to various magazines. I write, I ghost write as an author. I write books on behalf of other people. Actually my book is also coming. It is that mentality that I got from my parents that you can achieve anything anywhere, it doesn’t matter where you come from or your background. It doesn’t matter if you fail, just carry on and for me, I have no fear into going into an industry that I know nothing about.
I am an ambassador for over 30 charities and all these charities involve taking care of children that are orphans or children that come from underprivileged families. Couple of these charities take care of people with disabilities, people with albinism, the blind, apart from my charities, I also get involved with other charities that take care of widows and the elderly. The beauty is that as an African, I don’t just support African charities, I support like Asian charity, South American charity and more. I am an ardent supporter of a charity based in Peru, taking care of children underprivileged background. I tell people who I mentor to have two hands; one for your family and the other for people out there that need you. Apart from getting involved with charities, I also get involved with politics. I am the chair of African, Caribbean and Asian Women in Politics here in the UK and globally. I am the chairperson for this forum where we meet and discuss with women from different backgrounds in politics. I am working underground towards becoming the president of Kenya and I know that some people are asking if it has been a dream of mine for a long time and my answer to them is that it is not a dream but an anointing. It is a calling. I can’t wait to go and serve the over 50 million people in Kenya that are waiting for me. The excitement is brewing, I already have people on ground and I also have people that are helping to fundraise for the campaign that are not necessarily Kenyans. There is an enormous support network. I want to come to Kenya to lead as servant because I think servant leadership is the best form of leadership. I have seen everything. I have owned everything I need to own. I have two older children, so I am free to serve other people. It is not going to be the red carpet style of leadership. I am here to make sure that families would not go hungry, I am here to make sure that basic human rights like education is provided for free, the elderly are not abandoned, the youths after finishing their education do not sit idle. I will ensure that a nation that is fed well becomes a growing nation all round. Gone are the days when Africans should rely on handouts. We have resources and human capacity. My leadership style is going to be transferring my expertise that I have learnt in the UK to our people because things here in the UK work. We need everything in Kenya to work.
My Journey
My journey as a Kenyan has been of complete pride. I am so proud of everything that I have achieved. I am particularly proud of my failures. There are businesses I have put together and they have failed flat. My journey hasn’t been smooth. I have been surrounded by incredible people from different parts of the world. I am a peoples’ person. I love humanity. I am supporting a woman in Nigeria in business at the moment. That is my journey from Kenya; becoming an entrepreneur, a mother, a philanthropist, mentor, community leader and now heading to become president of Kenya. I am also becoming a lover of God and Jesus. Everything has been guided and anointed. It is all God and I am grateful for that.
I also want to talk about my love for organizing events to bring people together, businesses together. My latest venture with Lord Taylor of Warrick is the Commonwealth Business awards which I just recently organized with UK parliament. That was huge. We brought business owners, investors and funders under one roof. It’s a way of strengthening ties between the UK and the rest of the commonwealth countries and also the whole of Africa. Our guest of honour was the UK Trade and Business minister, Lord Dominic Johnson CBE.
Childhood
I was born in Mombasa, so beautiful a place. I speak Swahili and Luo. I always loved going back to the village as a child. I had a special connection with my grandfather. I loved the way my grandfather loved people. When school closes, I was always the one among my siblings to rush to the village. I had a mix of village and city life. I always say that when I go back and settle in Kenya, I want to go and settle in the village. Though I want to be president, as president you have to have a base in the city but my main base would be in the village. I love that rural life.
Awards and Accolades
I have over 400 awards given to me by different communities, Africans, non-Africans alike for all the philanthropic work I have been doing and for entrepreneurship and leadership. I am grateful that I am being given enough flowers while I am still alive. I have been awarded more than any African here in the UK and Europe. The highest is the one from the President of the United States, Joe Biden, the (Lifetime Achievement award).
I produced and directed the Pauline Long Show on Sky Channel 182 Ben Television and I am so grateful to the Nigerian founder of the TV station, Dr Alistair Soyode for believing and trusting in me for 8 years giving me show that was very popular. I had two live shows. I also became a director and executive producer in my four studios.
My parents
My mother was a tailor but these days they call it fashion designer. Till this day, she is still a fashion designer, 60 years on. She is a role model tome and my siblings. There was a time we lived in a very big house. There was a time we would wake up as kids and the living room was filled with sewing machines. She had tenders to sew school uniforms, government uniforms. She trained many to be tailors. My parents had several businesses. They could afford to take all 11 of us to private schools, have several cars. Growing up in Kenya was beautiful. My parents also took care of people in the village, so many orphans. Right now, I get people contacting me on social media telling me it is because your father or mother that I have a beautiful family, that I have this business because they paid my school fees and they did this and that; So many testimonies. So many parents gave their children names after my mother and father. All of my siblings work hard and live to give back. I have a sibling who is a music producer, there is a professors in Kenya, here is a politician, I also have a sibling who manages a whole airport just to name a few.