Another Great Day Planned for Today

We are going to visit with the Sultan today and have an audience with the Queen in Bafoussam but before we will be heading to the Queen's home village to complete the hygiene education through soccer program.

We are also doing a full inventory of our school supplies who just arrived from Douala (at last after being stuck in customs) before we spend the afternoon at the local elementary schools to distribute the school supplies and organize a friendly soccer tournament between the various schools.

The Power for Women and of Women

We had a great meeting with the local women of the village organized by Anadou who was able at times to share valuable insight and translate questions in the local dialect.

He said the most important part is to work to offer women who are honest the right opportunity - we were very impressed by the group of 15 women who came to share their stories and limitations.

The key blocker is not the desire to work but capital to be able to purchase fertilizers and rent land to provide extra income, and the key is to improve the quality of the crop. Better product = more income = independence, we were so impressed by their resilience and understanding of this basic concept.

We realized through our interaction that the women in the village, who are responsible for the children and household maintenance, are also expected to make extra income two days a week after working the field the other five days.

What the micro loan could mean for them? They want to be able to hire men to do the digging for them to make money to be able to afford education for their kids and reinvest in more things for the family, so they could own together one day a plantation - this was inspiring and we knew we could make a direct impact.

We explained that we had resources but that they would have to apply for a loan- to be repaid within 6 months (allow for money to be used through two growing cycles) - a good crop has yield a 50% return on average and they historically have been able to recoup all money during a bad season. We charged them to return tomorrow with 5 pods of women and a detailed budget each - we have forms ready to go and so ready to provide these women the opportunity.

First business plan competition

Our group was thrilled to have the chance to watch the medical university students present in the business plan competition, and even more excited to hear their ideas.

We were given the opportunity to watch three groups present, and engage in conversation with some of the students. There were some great ideas presented involving agriculture, and animals. We were amazed by how put together the final presentation was. It involved reproducing rabbits and selling the meat to different cities. It was clearly communicated that the students had put a lot of effort into their final presentation, thus they became the first winners of the business plan competition and were awarded $1,000 (or 500,000 franks) to start their business.

We were also excited that the winners used the "five steps to a business plan" concept taught on the Tech for Africa journey two years ago, and emphasized the importance of it in their presentation.

Overall, we enjoyed watching the presentations and are excited to see the progress of their business in years to come

Campus visit - meeting students

What an amazing experience we had today! We woke up early and had to drive two hours to finally visit the campus of UdM (new and old) including a personal tour of the limited resources they currently have and where some of our previous donations of technology have been put to use (computer labs, xRay machine). We were inspired by the conversations and inspirations of many of the students when our team had the opportunity to meet with student government body representatives. Questions asked where: what clubs both schools had and what ideas they have or would like to make happen. Many students thanked us for coming back (as we continue to return every two years) but said no, and thanked them for welcoming us every time and offering us a true partnership. We shared our school colors and look forward to this afternoon's business plan competition where we will see what they might apply what we presented on last time we were here.

Competition and Financing

We are up bright and early today, (6am here) to travel to UdM to facilitate our business plan competition, we are so excited to meet the students there who are around our age. Some even know English! And as helpful as facial expressions are, it will be nice to ask questions in our native tongue instead of French today. After the business competition, we will be meeting village women to begin the micro finance loan process as well. We better wake up, because its going to be a long day!

Applying Free Enterprise - Starting with Us

We are working with some local seamstress to develop a local business as part of our micro loan effort and have decided to venture to the local market under the careful eye of our guide, Abdu. The ladies got a lot of great items and will be fitted by the local entrepreneur based on some design.

Economics 101

We are learning today about the economic life cycle of the plantation and surrounding economy as well as the power of the US dollar (it is amazing how much a dollar can get you around here - a family of 4 lives in a dollar a day) - there is so much economic potential as people really really want to work to better themselves and their families.