Our Story
UNIMED Mental Health Resource (Inc) was founded on the backdrop of a true story—a story about how mental illness is real, how it is a disease, and how it does not discriminate. The organization's origins are rooted in personal tragedy and determination to transform that pain into purpose.
Mrs. Doris Festus Lahai, our Founder and CFO, is a Registered Nurse and Nurse Practitioner with a remarkable career spanning multiple continents. She began her professional journey as a Confidential Secretary at the Sierra Leone Road Transport Corporation in 1985, while also teaching shorthand, typewriting, and office practice at St Joseph's vocational school. After graduating from Milton Margai Teachers College, she relocated to the United States where she worked as a Registered Nurse and Nurse Practitioner at Harris Methodist Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas.
However, her most profound challenge came when mental illness touched her family. Mrs. Lahai's passion for helping those living with mental illness was born from personal experience when her two sons became mentally ill. Her eldest son, Unisa Paul Bangura, was a bright young man whose dreams of becoming a mechanical engineer were shattered by mental illness. Despite the family's efforts and her professional medical knowledge, Unisa took his own life in October 2010.
Out of this devastating loss came the organization's foundation. Unisa had been saving money in his piggy bank for his mother's 50th birthday celebration, promising "I will take no excuse for this celebration." Those savings became the seed funding for UNIMED Mental Health Resource when it was formally established in 2013. The organization was officially launched in October 2018.
Tragically, Mrs. Lahai's second son, Ahmed Kekeh Joe Bangura, also struggled with mental illness and passed away in June 2023. In honor of both her sons, the organization was renamed UNIMED (from its original name Unisa Mental Health Resource) in 2023, carrying forward their memory and the mission they inspired.
