After Identifying and training over twenty (20) less privileged persons from the community of Mile 16 Bolifamba under the “Transformed Livelihood” project, MEPCAM decided to empower these participants to start their personal businesses.
To achieve this objective, we organized a fundraising event on August 08 2020 to raise startup capital for these project participants.
This event that was attended by MEPCAM partners, leaders of the Navigators of Cameroon and other distinguished invitees had a total of 105 persons from different regions of Cameroon.
At the end of this even, a sum of CFA502,000 (SEK7,860.46) was raised through MEPCAM’s partners excluding the individual supports that came to each of the fourteen participants who actively took part in this event.
Through this support and the interest free loan given to these participants, they have been able to engage fully in different lucrative and income generating businesses such as agriculture, poultry farming, pastries, fashion and designing etc from which they take care of themselves and families.
Eyong Martin Besong is a-49-year old father of four living at Tiko precisely at Mondeka-Toll gate.
His involvement in MEPCAM has brough a complete revival in his life, family and business as he is now involved in the cultivation of cassava on four hectares of land.
He transforms this cassava into garri, ”water fufu,” ”nkum-nkum.” He has employed over ten people to provide labour force in his farm and who are able to help their family from the wages of their labour.
He acknowledged how the enterprise development trainings and coaching he received from MEPCAM have pushed him into this business when he says ”the training on the topic of ’The Entrepeneur’ was a package I considered to have been prepared to take me to this level in my business.
Before joining MEPCAM I had lost my job as a worker in the Cameroon Development Cooperation (CDC) as a result of the anglophone crisis.
I went around looking for jobs so I could take care of my family but could not find one because my age alone disqualified me.
But through my work with MEPCAM, I was challenged to use my experience as former CDC worker to create job for myself and others around me.
As as result, I spent time to think of how to cultivate and tranform cassava into other finished products that can be consumed by people around me and through this business, live well with my family and we pray every morning thanking God for His blessings in our family.
Our life can never be the same again” Martin has a small factory with two machines but looks forward to having a company where he will produce and parcel these products across the national boundary; to cultivate cassava on over ten hectares of land, to employ at least twenty workers and produce besides garri, water fufu, nkum-nkum, fertizer from the waste in his comapny.