SocialResults
POLIRESULTS is an honorary member of the association ident.africa (registered charity) and supports the work of this humanitarian organization. ident.africa helps children living in poverty in Africa – especially the inhabitants of the village Boboyo. The goal of ident.africa is, with help of donations, to offer until 2010 a basic education to the children and so ensure them a better future.
Interview with Mr. Fred Eric Essam, the founder and chairperson of the organisation ident.africa e. V., about his motives for founding ident.africa.
N. Poli: Mr. Essam, my first questions to you refers to your motivation to found ident.africa. Tell us please, what your motives were to found the organisation in 2004, and why you concentrate your help quite in particular on the village Boboyo in Nordkamerun.
F. E. Essam: My father comes from the region. He then went to other towns in the south and west and I had the possibility to take the final secondary school exam in Douala. With this, the foundation-stone for my career was laid, Cameroon gave me a scholarship and I was able to study biomedical technology in Germany. Consequently, I was employed as a sales manager at IBM and in 2004 I thought that it was time to give something back to my land and the people there.
N. Poli: And what have you achieved as an association since then?
F. E. Essam: Thanks to my many friends in the association, in my view, a lot. In the articles of our objectives we have committed, in Germany as well as in Africa, to achieve a sensitization that one must become active to overcome the evolutionary rift which exists between Africa and other places in the world. And this will only happen with an improvement in the structure, strengthening the people of Africa, training them to use modern tools and giving them a boost of self-confidence to take things into their own hands. Speaking more specifically, we have hired teachers in Boboyo, procured school materials, had benches made and have ensured, due to our actions, huge resonance in the whole of Cameroon. And now it goes on.
N. Poli: This sounds very good. However, it is certainly difficult to stand out against other charitable organisations? How do you reach your members and sponsors and what makes ident.africa, in your opinion, so "different"?
F. E. Essam: Other organisations are also competent and have, I think, sometimes honourable motives. But we want to be personally very accessible and are more than just a pamphlet and an account number. Everybody can get to know us and build a picture of whom we are and who our partners are in Cameroon; the so-called Codebo, whom we know personally, are very trustworthy, engaged people. We bring together the faces; that’s why we have our library, films and reports. And we are already a kind of family and friends, who would also like to take over responsibility. This also persuades the sponsors in the different companies, who always visualise the status of our work for themselves and ask what they can still do.
N. Poli: What are the goals of ident.africa during the next 2-3 years? Are there already concrete objectives or visions?
F. E. Essam: We will do several things. Continuity is important. Therefore, we will also continue last year’s activities and hire more teachers and procure school materials. Also we will lay the foundation-stone for a new schoolhouse, as a luminous example of the determined intention to provide a stable educational future. But now technology also comes to help us on our path. Thanks to the initiative of the firm Wallstein a photovoltaic plant is being built to supply electricity, combined with the education of some friends from Boboyo to maintain it. We also find it fantastic that the senior specialist service is supporting us; a competent engineer has been provided for us for several weeks. Our vision is that education is the key to success, the children and also the adults become bold and skilled, then they are able to take their future into their own hands and to bring their community forward. And we hope that many, in the whole of Africa, will copy us.
N. Poli: Yes, wonderful. How would ident.africa like to reach their goals? Mr. Essam what do you believe, must in particular be done so that the goals for Boboyo can be achieved.
F E. Essam: The goals must remain realistic and, nevertheless, attractive and effective. For the implementation, of course, we need the money of sponsors. One can, for instance, with 1,000 euros be an enormous support directly on site and finance two teachers for a year.
N. Poli: One last question to you, Mr. Essam. What would you say to a businessman or a private individual whom you would like to persuade to help ident.africa.
F E. Essam: I tell them about my land, my friends there, and here in Germany, and I report about things which illuminate subjects other than economic efficiency, competition, operating figures and machines. I speak of doing something for other people who receive help with a lot of gratitude and are determined to deploy themselves for their own region and to create prospects; these are the children, the teachers, the inhabitants and also the politicians. And I invite them to help here in Germany with the association’s campaigns and to help find new friends and partners.
N. Poli: Mr. Essam, many thanks for your comments. I think, that the good work of ident.africa e. V., clearly came across to readers and ident.africa enthusiasts and I wish you, furthermore, lots of success, donations and sponsors.
All the best for your next goal.
Goodbye.
F. E. Essam: Yes, many, many thanks. Goodbye.
Benefits of POLIRESULTS
Project office:
fon: +49 (0) 2403 / 7480-444
fax: +49 (0) 2403 / 7480-445
Phone marketing:
Acquisition of sponsors and future ident.africa partners
Active participation in ident.africa arrangements
