Laisin Joachim Afoni, the Chief Executive Officer for HUMACARE has called on well wishers to support his NGO in its efforts to take care of those that circumstances have pushed to the fringes of society. HUMACARE is an NGO founded since 2005 to help the destitute and the depressed. Speaking recently to Edev Newspaper in an exclusive interview, Laisin Joachim Afoni said he was pushed into the initiative by the situation of the less privileged children. He intimates here that the experience of children in orphanages particularly touched him. He begins this interview by stating how he concretely started his Human Care activities.
"I noticed that children in the suburbs could not afford to go to school. I felt I had to do something so I organised classes under trees. I bought pencils and books for some of these children. This continued for some time until I decided to do things officially. I got an authorisation in 2005. My purpose was to help children from poor areas to attend school."
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You certainly have had challenges along the line. Can you spell out some of these challenges?
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2005 to 2020 is a long time for an organisation like this one to have remained in the sidelines. When I started, the idea was to give some of the children school bags, books and food to eat in school. All of these came from my little salary. Two schools were created in Yaounde for the purpose of these poor children. It was not easy for people to understand my mission and a good number of people looked at it in a different way. I had to leave Yaounde and when this occoured it looked like an end to my dreams.
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Despite the difficulties you sailed on. How did you do it?
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Back in Bamenda with the onset of the crisis I told myself that I could not sit around and do nothing. Seeing all the suffering orphans and the great number of Internally Displaced People I decided to do something. I continued and I think the first outing I did was on the World Humanitarian day during which I attended to 75 Internally Displaced People in Bamenda. Since then HUMACARE has been lucky and I have called on people to help us in what ever way they can. Thank God people have been chipping things in and this has been helping IDPs. At the moment, HUMACARE takes care of about 850 IDPs and 1500 IDPs have registered at the NGO.
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What are your immediate future plans?
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An NGO like mine is registered for a periode of 99 years span and can serve in Cameroon and beyond. As at now, we are focused on Bui Division. At the moment we are covering Mbiame, Kumbo, Kom, Djottin and our seat is in Bamenda III where we receive our IDPs.
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We've noticed that you have thrown your weight behind the anti COVID-19 Fight and that you've focused much more on IDPs.
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The fight against COVID-19 is a fight for everybody since the Pandemic is a reality. IDPs cannot be left out of the fight. I happen to have been lucky to have received some gifts from well wishers which constituted of Bucket taps, Soap and face masks. For the past four days, I have been able to give 500 bucket taps, face masks and 880 pieces of savon. About 250 IDPs have been attended to. Because the IDPs do not live together, I had to space them in different days over a periode of four days. They grouped out in groups of fifty. Yesterday we had two groups. Fifty were attended to in the morning while the other fifty were attended to in the afternoon.
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You certainly should have a message for those out there who are prepared to take part in such lofty Humanitarian gestures.
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You see HUMACARE has as its logo a Peace Plant. One of its goals is the promotion of peace. For those who want to participate in the promotion of these goals, HUMACARE is one of the best place for them. It is a place for them to come so that we can join hands in taking care of thousands of IDPs who are out there. Sooner or later children will have to go back to school and many of them will not be able to afford the necessary uniforms and books. I call on people to look through HUMACARE and see the faces of these children who are languishing in poverty.
Interviewed in Bamenda by Francis Ekongang Nzante Lenjo
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