Women of Cameroon Discover Own Self- Worth Through Heifer’s Training and Instruction, con't.

Madame Foretia speaks of the “great change” that has taken place in the life of her family since becoming involved with Heifer’s various trainings and teachings

It was the tears of a teenage daughter I witnessed on my second day in Cameroon that really impressed upon me what Heifer has meant to the women of this West African Nation.

I was in the new concrete block home of Madame Emilia Foretia, visiting with her family. Her children stood nearby ­– shy and silent – hesitant to say a word to me. The youngest son, Ivo, spoke of his aspirations to continue what he has learned from Heifer by becoming a veterinarian. Then the daughter, Regina, slowly began to speak, choking back her tears until her words poured out as she described how proud she was of all that her mother had accomplished since becoming involved with Heifer.

Earlier That Day
I am to spend the afternoon with Madame Foretia and other members of the Signal Hill Group. We park on the side of the road walk down a path past Madame Foretia’s elevated pigsties to a small wooden meeting room where I sit in the middle of the group and ask about how their involvement with Heifer has affected their lives. The group is preparing to pass on piglets to another group in the community who were involved with Heifer.

“To pass on the gift, to pass on the knowledge, to pass on everything you have learned – you have a great joy,” Madame Foretia says. She also speaks of the “great change” that has taken place in the life of her family since becoming involved with Heifer’s various trainings and teachings. “The knowledge that I have right now… to live well with my neighbors and to make the production grow well – I have a lot.”

Madame Emilia Foertia (center) has become not only the leader of her household,
but a guiding force in her community.

Her son Denis is now in Medical school in New Jersey, which she says brings her “great joy.” She tells me how she was able to help pay for his visa and flight to America through the profits of her pig farm.
Ivo, who is still in secondary school, has opened an account at the local credit union with the money he has made from the pigs. “He has an interest in the pigs so much and also farm work,” she says. “He bases all his interest on that. We started an account to motivate him to work harder.” Other families send their children to stay and learn from Madame Foretia. It is a task she fully embraces.

“I do it free of charge,” she says. “I see it that as they have trained me and I should also help other people. I should not keep the knowledge within me. That does not help anything.” She sees this instruction as providing a future to the youths that come to stay with her.

“If the child has enough interest he can then take what he has learned and make his life in that way,” she says. Before leaving the meeting house to go to Madame Foretia’s new home, the group sings a song about Heifer to express their appreciation. It is sung in the native dialect of Pidgin, so I can’t make it all out but the chorus is, “Heifer is a friend, a friend that doesn’t let you down.”

The women of the Achoubong Group in Bafou sing a song of thanks and safe journey.

Returning to a Home
We drive back into the city of Buea to the new home the Foretia’s first began building nearly 20 years ago, but were only able to complete last year with money that their son sent from America. Instead of the wooden frame house with dirt floors that I had seen so far, her new home has concrete floors and walls. Madame Foretia gets out a box of glasses, cups and saucers that she was able to purchase for when they have guests over. She also shows me a griddle she bought so that her children can fix quick meals before and after school. They have also bought a very small television to keep the children around the house more.

Madame Foretia then pulls out her record books to show me how she plans for the upcoming years pig sales based on her past figures. Hilda, zone manager for Heifer Cameroon, tells me recordkeeping in not traditionally part of the Cameroonian culture, but it is something Heifer Cameroon teaches in order for the recipients to see their profits and plan for the future. “If you do not record it, you do not realize it,” Madame Foretia says.

Our driver had to return to the farm to pick up their children so they can tell me about what Heifer has meant to their lives. After speaking with Madame Foretia and her husband Stephen for some time, I begin to get anxious as I think I have everything I need to tell Madame Foretia’s story. I was wrong, and it is the last time I will be anxious for the rest of the trip. When their children arrive, they are all noticeably nervous to talk to me and hesitate to even utter a word.

Ivo finally talks about wanting to be veterinarian and another boy who is staying with the family shyly tells me what he has learned. Regina has not yet spoken. When she tries to speak she begins to cry. Her father asks why she is crying. Hilda quickly interjects that she is so happy. Regina fights through the tears as she describes everything her mother has done for their family.

“My mother started with one pig and now my mother has 22 pigs,” Regina says. “She pays our school fees and gives us transportation. Everything that my mother works is in the pigsty.” Hilda has to wipe away her tears. It was the first, and not the last time, I would have to hold back my tears.

Head of the Family
A couple days after visiting Madame Foretia and her family, I have the pleasure of traveling to the hilltop village of Bafou. Here I visit with two women who have experienced great loss, but have overcome those obstacles to become self-reliant leaders of their families, and in their community.

We arrive at Martha Nandog’s home first. I sit on a bench outside and speak with her through an interpreter named Ali. She tells me that she was a nurse working in the city and living with her husband, who was the breadwinner of the family.

Since the death of her husband, Martha has used Heifer’s training and livestock
to provide for her children and grandchildren.

“We came back to the village and we were empty handed because he was a diabetic,” Martha says. “Here, to manage a diabetic patient, you need a lot of money. He died in 1995, leaving no food, no money and the children dropped out of school.”

Martha found herself living a “life of borrowing,” by having to constantly ask neighbors and family for food and money. During this time, one of her children was in the hospital for two years and went through eight operations. To pay for the operations she had to lease out the land they owned. “When I came back from the hospital, I can only thank god that Heifer came to our community,” she says. “I was one of the first people to be assisted here.”

Martha received four piglets and training on how take properly take care of them. She says the training in agroforestry, composting and integrating livestock and agriculture has increased the production on her farm. “I have been able to pay all of the debt and I have taken back our farm land that I leased out,” Martha says. “I now own our farm again.”

For two of her sons that dropped out of school, Martha used her profits to purchase them motorcycles so that they can make money by providing transportation. She has five grandchildren that now live near her and she is the one that provides their daily food. “I am very, very happy. I have been able to take care of my family,” Martha says. “I don’t have to go here or there to ask for help.” She says that other women in the village now come to her to learn how she takes cares of her pigs and farm. She has also Passed on the Gift of four piglets to others.

“When I think about how I was before and look at where I am now, it is good to also give an opportunity to someone else to see how there life can also change. I am copying what Heifer has done for me,” Martha says. “I feel like a man now. It is true that the husband is gone, but Heifer is my second husband.”

Beyond Her Dreams
Next, we head back down the dirt road to a home just around the corner from Achoubong Group meeting house. Here I meet Louise Zamgue, a woman who has experienced many trials and hardships. Her first husband kicked her out his home when she could not get pregnant after five years of marriage. She then returned to her father’s house and in less than a month she was pregnant by someone she was seeing. She then had a couple of children by a man and was forced to leave her father’s house.

With profits from her pig farm, Louise has constructed her first home,
which includes a sewing room.

“I was forced to become a crop farmer and I got nothing out of it because I did not know you could use manure to improve yields,” Louise says. “I depended on my father and relatives to take care of my children.” Louise eventually remarried, but her second husband died when she was pregnant with her fourth child. But before he died, she begged him to buy her a small piece of land of her own and he did.

“We did not have enough food to feed all the mouths because the crop yields were really poor because we had no knowledge of how to improve,” Louise says. “It was a problem having food all year round.”

In 2004, Louise got involved with Heifer International, receiving four piglets and learning agroforestry, composting, animal husbandry, ethnoveterinary treatment, gender issues and leadership skills. “There were certain things I didn’t know I could do to improve my life,” Louise says.

“Before there were some socially constructed rules around the village where certain functions were abundant to men. I was always having problems because I expected my brothers to do the work and they didn’t do it. With the gender training, I understood that I could do it.”
With the profits from her farm, Louise took care of one of her son’s medical problems. She also began buying materials a piece at a time for the eventual construction of the simple home she lives in now.

“I am so very happy because I was reduced to a beggar, but presently I am able to take care of everything and provide for my children,” Louise says. Before she could not care for her children or pay for their school fees. The children lived with relatives until she began to see a profit on her farm and were able to bring them back home.I then ask Louise if in the past could she have imagined everything that has happened in her life since becoming involved with Heifer. She replies with a question.

“How could I imagine it when I had nothing?” Louise says. “I could not have even dreamt of having a house of my own. I thought I would die without having anything my own.”

- Jeremy Glover

Maria now processes her dairy cattle’s milk into cheese, yogurt and ice cream

(This is the second story in a two-part look at the life changing work of Heifer Cameroon. To view the daily journal, with stories, photos and video, visit :

Heifer Foundation Blog or Hope Equity Blog