Cameroon has seen quite some challenging times and due to internal conflicts, more than 700,000 people have been internally displaced. Besides the conflict, many other challenges on a personal level have affected most of the population. Mafah Cornelius Kuta has been affected as well and because of this, he now wants to focus on providing entrepreneurship skills for young people who, due to poverty in Cameroon cannot access quality education. He aims to run a hybrid curriculum that teaches young people to learn as well as earn. He hopes this will lead to capacity building, an entrepreneurial mindset, skills for financial management, and/or access to quality education.
In this blog he shares the story of one of his beneficiaries.
Farming to a peaceful tomorrow
by Mafah Cornelius Kuta
“Abang was born in a typical peasant small-scale farming background in Wotutu Village in the South-West Region of Cameroon. His family’s livelihood depended on the cultivation and sales of food crops like vegetables, plantains, and cocoyams. Mondays and Thursdays at the ‘Mile 4’ market days they would sell their harvested produce. With the income generated, his mother would buy other food items like dried fish, palm oil, njanga and maggi to fulfill their family’s needs. Any leftover money was saved to be used for school fees for the children. Abang and his two siblings went through primary school with no problems because their parents were still strong enough to work. When Abang moved up to secondary school, the story, however, changed. The father died after he was bitten by a poisonous snake. Two years later his mother died due to hypertension. Abang and his two siblings were now orphaned with nobody to take care of them or pay their school fees. Abang was forced to drop out of school.
Living in the village without schooling and with limited job opportunities rendered life very difficult and frustrating for him. He then moved to Douala, the economic capital of Cameroon to look for a job. Because he lacked the minimum qualifications, he could not find any good job and ended up living in the streets begging and stealing at times to make ends meet.
One day, in the Sandaga Market in Douala, while I was selling tomatoes from my farm I saw Abang. We both are children from Wotutu Village. We attended primary school together and moved up to the same secondary school. He dropped out of school before me and later on migrated to the city while I continued and graduated from high school with a General Certificate of Education (GCE).
It was at that time when my parents had passed away so I could not move on directly to the university.
For me, this time was also very frustrating because there were no job opportunities. Fortunately for me, I was able to start cultivating tomatoes so that I could raise money to fend for myself and also fund my further studies. I made it through tertiary education and became a full-time rural entrepreneur.
Looking very shabby and frustrated, my old-time classmate Abang recounted his story to me and asked me if I could help him in any way. This was the opportunity for me to share my story and I asked him to join me on the farm. He accepted and followed me back to the village where we farmed together for two years. With the experience and skills he gained while practicing the cultivation and sales of food crops, Abang went on to start his own farm business. Today, he is a proud rural entrepreneur with two hectares of cocoa farm and other food crops.
Abang is only one of many people who have been and/or are facing similar challenges. It is my goal to provide access to skill training so people like him, will be able to take their lives into their own hands to sculpt their own path ahead.”
