My story is a true testimony of the challenges that children in rural areas of Cameroon and black African countries face in search of education. I was born and raised in my maternal village by my maternal grandparents. My mother left my father to another man when I was still very tender. Her new husband refused welcoming me and my elder brother to his home. This made us to stay with our maternal grandparents. Our maternal grandfather never went to school but he believed that education can change everything and so he worked hard to give us the best education he could afford. He always told us that “Education changes everything in life.” As a farmer in the rural Nchemba village, he did the best he could to ensure that we got education and most of the time we used to help him out in the farm during school holidays.
Life in the rural areas was not easy, we used to wake up at five in the morning as early as 4am and we had to walk five kilometers to school and back. We studied in very dilapidated and poor structures. I remember during those days having a shoe was a luxury that children from few families could afford, and the children used to wear tattered uniforms to school. Classroom experience was really hard, we used to share few text books that were available and most of them were not up-to-date. This placed us in a disadvantaged position compared to our peers in urban schools who we were competing with. We also had so many school chores and during that time most of the schools in the rural areas could not afford to employ auxilary staff and the school having vast agricultural land, the children used to go to the forest to harvest wood for teachers and also do plant horticultural crops. This also placed the children from these schools at a disadvantaged position.

After school me and other children spent most of our time helping our parents with household chores and there was little time to do revision. There were limited revision materials. As a result of all these challenges more than 50% of my primary school mates did not make it to secondary/high school and some especially the girls ended up getting married early.

This really made me to see the weaknesses of the education system in Cameroon which was and is still characterized with overcrowded classrooms, root learning methodology, teacher and examination centered. All attempts to push the government to institute reforms to make it more responsive to the needs of learners failed. This made me and some likeminded persons to start United Action for Children in 1996 to see in what way we can make quality and functional education accessible to rural and urban slums children. Through the volunteer program instituted by United Action for Children , I had the opportunity of working with international volunteers from Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Austria, South Korea, Scotland, Britain, Ghana, Denmark, Canada and US among others who equally gave me much inspiration. Upon return to Netherlands, our past Dutch volunteers to form United Action for Children Netherlands who later on assisted us in constructing a model school in Buea, Cameroon known as Jamadianle Nursery and Primary school and another Dutch organization LiveBuild assisted in constructing another school known as International Children’s Academy Mamfe.
With the support of Mentors Foundation, I am now tirelessly helping youths especially rural based to become gainfully employed, job creators and independent. So far, I have been able to touch the lives of over 700 youths already. It pleases me to see the direct, positive impact I am having on the future generation.
I wish to sincerely thank the Mentors Foundation for making everything that I do possible. I shall always live to remember.