I was born in a poor family, in a remote village in Cameroon called Bangoua. To support the family and finance the education of my four brothers and myself, my mother used the resources available in her environment such as agriculture, small businesses and, above all, a local network of village associations, where members put money every week, then one of them used it to carry out a project, doing this, each one of the members in a rotating way could succeeded to realize small dream to see his/her family moving forward. But it was not enough to help me achieve my dreams, because very soon I had to face the reality that all young people of my generation found. So, in order to survive, I had to leave university when I was 21 years (Already very old entering University) old in 2001 trying to find a stable occupation and the way to subsistence, therefore goodbye to my dreams of acquiring a university degree in organic chemistry.
The following years allowed me to ask myself questions about my life, why I am in this situation? Why I really had to abandon my dreams? It seemed unfair to me that a young person was already labeled as a lost generation. My way of seeing the world had changed and I realized that little by little the difficulties I encountered, thousands of young people from my country or continent also found them every day. After working in all that I could and for my efforts to continue studying, in 2004, I completed a twelve-month professional training in computer maintenance. At that time, most of my friends had already put aside their dreams and I wanted to infect them with my optimism so that they would struggle to study.
I was wondering how without financial means I could contribute to the education of needy young people like me who could not afford to go to a school of their choice? My reflections led me in 2008 and 2013 respectively to the creation of the “WebDev Foundation“, an association that has been working since then on supporting children’s education and youth development and “Bekondo Foundation” with the objective of fighting for social justice, working with farmers in a remote town in Cameroon.
When I realized that my life made sense when I was carrying out positive actions, in order to solve a social problem, I decided to go back to university to do a bachelor’s degree in Sociology in order to better understand the communities, the men and women beneficiaries of my actions. Since I arrived in Spain, after few months, I had the opportunity to take a course with Economists Without Borders at the National University of Distance Education (UNED) on “Towards an economy at the service of people -Development, feminist economics, finance and economics – social and solidarity economy – Principles for a just economy”. At the same time, I started to collaborate with some organizations to better understand the reality of the country. These study and work experiences gave me enough motivation or ideas to continue with my search for knowledge.
I discovered that each step we take has an impact on the human being and everything depends on how we want it, it can be positive or negative. Particularly interested in actions at the service of people, I then did a Master on Social Economy and Solidarity to deepen my knowledge in this field. Personally, I have been very motivated in the subject since I took the course previously mentioned with the UNED, whose objective was to learn the basics about it and understand how it is affecting the current environment, social and economic situation in making decisions about the future. This experience helped me to put the needs in Spain and Europe on the table.
Right now co-founded and running the NGO ABARKA which aim to support the WebDev Foundation projects and also to respond to the need of the european community by providing activities and projects to contribute in solving local problems. We are working with organizations in more than 10 europeans (West and Eastern) countries and running projects funded by Erasmus Plus.
