Harambe-Cameroon

I am really excited about my internship here in Yaounde. Rachel and I are working with a foundation called Harambe-Cameroon, and more specifically on an environmental project that they are currently working on. Harambe-Cameroon was started by Olivia Mukam, who is just 5 years older than I am. She came to the United States in order to study at John-Hopkins University. While there, she was involved in a project that involved African students who were all, like her, studying in the United States. They wanted to make use of their experiences and opportunities in the United States in order to make a difference back home in Africa. They made a collective initiative (which I not sure of all the details and objectifs of which) but is still going on today. So, Olivia came back to Cameroon, her native home, with a lot of talent, experiences, knowledge and most importantly passion for making a difference for her people here in Yaounde. She began Harambe-Cameroon, a non-governmental organization with the idea that a large majority of Cameroon’s “enjeux” if you will, are actually pretty solvable. The problem is that the new generations simply don’t know how to make a living for themselves and solve the problems at the same time. It is commonly known here that a vast majority of the population is incredibly smart, and I think more than 50% of the population actually has a master’s degree. The problem can be found within the employment system. There are not nearly enough jobs in Cameroon, and no one has been taught the kind of entrepreneurial skills that are necessary to MAKE jobs for themselves. Olivia saw this as a huge opportunity. There are more than enough problems in Cameroon to be solved, and with the correct ideas and initiatives, those problems could be turned into businesses. And hence, the creation of Harambe-Cameroon. Olivia immediately focused on university students once she had set up Harambe. Last year they created a competition. Students had to identify a problem in their society, come up with a solution to this problem, and then propose a business solution to it. They got funding from other organizations and so forth, and were able to offer a valuable sum of starting money for the winners creation and commencement of their entrepreneurial idea. The winner of last year was Abdou NJOYA. He proposed the creation of a recycling system which would be installed on the different universities campuses and then potentially after a very long while, potentially within the city itself (as recycling here is actually non-existent.) He wanted to set up sets of 3 large waste bins-color coded as the Cameroonian flag in order to collect plastics, compostable materials and glass. Now a year later, the project is beginning to come together. He has since solidified his idea with essential particularities, for instance where the material would be taken and stored, how to create the bins so that stealing of the material (such as glass which gets a fairly good price from the retailers) and how they would educate the student population and make this system effective. Rachel and I have arrived just in time for the fun part: making this idea on paper become a reality for Abdou. This week we went with Abdou to the University of Yaounde I –our first campus choice. We talked with the Vice-President and with the Dean of Administration in order to see what the field looks like so far and what kind of support we might be getting. The President is the only person that we need permission from in order to start this program on his campus, but the others are a vital piece to helping us get the go-ahead. Both Abdou and I went into the meetings well prepared to answer the skeptical questions that these men would have for us, because I were them, it would seem a little too good to be true in a way. We need no help from them other than their permission-everything else is covered and would be self sustaining. We certainly were not expecting the meetings to go as well as they did however. The Vice-President said while he obviously could not give us the go ahead we needed, if he could help with anything he would and he got us the appointment with the Dean. The Dean was what I thought to be a tad condescending in the beginning of the meeting-he was only doing what anyone would by asking us all the details and being sure Abdou had indeed thought of everything-but at first it seemed as though he thought we were being naïve with this dream of recycling. However, Abdou is incredibly intelligent and has been working on this project for more than a year now, and answered all his questions with ease and reassurance. By the end of the meeting, the Dean told us he would help the project be expediated to the President, (really great because with African time, us getting our request to the president could be a long time without the dean’s help) and also told us he thought this project was a really great thing we were doing. Abdou was overly pleased afterwards, which was so fun to see after all his hard work. The communication between Abdou and I is also really great. He speaks English well, only slightly better than I speak French. So we both speak in interchangeable French and English, depending on what vocab we are needing and when we both want to practice our other language. We still have a lot to do obviously, with making educating posters, getting the bins created, setting them up on campus, etc. but it is so exciting to think we are actually putting this idea into development that will help the community immensely. It would be great to come back in about 5 years and see it in full swing. (Hopefully it will be doing really well by then.) While Rachel Abdou and I are working on that, Harambe is in full swing with this years competition. When we have time therefore, we will also be helping with that. We are coming up with all kinds of fundraising ideas, such as karaoke night, dance competitions, and “American cooking” type of bake sales. If anyone who is reading this has a facebook and has not done so already, if you could “like” Harambe-Cameroon on facebook or add them as a friend, it would be such a help. Olivia is trying to get funding and being able to say we have a thousand likes or friends on a social network would help a great deal. Thanks!