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Dear Friends –
In 1992, I had the good fortune to spend a semester of my undergraduate career studying in Cameroun, West Africa, with a program called the School for International Training. During that time I spent four weeks living in a small town called Ndicka with no electricity or running water. Despite his apparent poverty, my host Fabian Ndzana (nicknamed Ndebofa), was enormously generous and provided me with everything I needed, including much useful information for my research project, an investigation of how the people’s relationship to the forest had transformed over the years due to foreign timber harvesting. The primary income-generating method in Ndicka is cacao production. Harvested by hand from small plantations, the cacao beans are processed to be made into the chocolate that most of us love so dearly. Unfortunately, however, middlemen in the market chain offer less than fair prices to the villagers of Ndicka so they are unable to make substantial profits. To supplement their income, he and others are also engaged in the production of palm oil, a product used in many ways in Cameroun and beyond (see the fact sheet below). Over the years, Ndebofa and I have maintained contact via an annual letter. Throughout this time I have asked myself how I could repay his generosity and kindness. Understanding that a little money can go a long way in Ndicka, I finally asked him what he would need to improve his livelihood. He mentioned three things, two of which I feel I have the power to address. First of all, he mentioned the need to get a fairer price for his cacao. He is the president of a cooperative of 300 cacao producers. I am addressing this need by investigating some options for him to sell his cacao at “fair trade” prices. Secondly, Ndebofa needs an extractor so that he can properly extract the oil from the palm fruit which he harvests. Without an extractor he has to process the palm fruit by hand, an effort requiring a tremendous amount of work and time and for which the profit is minimal. The extractor would enable him to earn an extra $300 per year - a significant sum for his family (he has a wife and two children in school). The cost of the extractor Ndebofa needs is around $1,500 and in 2007 I decided that I would try to raise this money for him. I had always wanted to repay his kindness in some way. In all likelihood the extractor would be used by others in the community, as well.
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