Doctor Bwelle; The “Robin Hood” of Africa!

– By Issa N. Nyaphaga ©2010

“I have been dealing with the realities of African societies for the past 30 years; and looking at the work of Dr. Georges Bwelle, I can say: “The Contemporary Africa is a Sleeping Giant for Social Change.” I had been honored to witness first-hand the power of Dr. Bwelle’s work. I have seen him and his volunteer team provide hundreds of free medical consultations—in just one day—to villagers who had never seen a doctor before. After providing consultations from dawn until dusk, Dr. Bwelle rested only briefly before beginning to provide no-cost surgery to villagers. I stayed up through the night to watch him perform 10 consecutive surgeries overnight using only local anesthesia on patients in an isolated village with no electricity and no running water.”

Dr. Bwelle is a Cameroonian surgeon at the Central Hospital in Yaoundé the capital of the Republic of Cameroon. Dr. Georges works Monday to Friday at the hospital and runs ASCOVIME the weekends. ASCOVIME is the community-based organization Georges Bwelle has created to support the rural communities of his country.

Georges is one of the committed community leaders who is making a difference in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people every weekend. I have been advocating for individuals like Dr. Georges outside of the continent of Africa for more than a decade now. Dr. Bwelle has become known affectionately as “Georges of the Jungle” and he is widely respected among the thousands of indigenous villagers that he serves every year. Mr. Bwelle is a pioneer of Global Health who has created the concept of combining Public Health and Education in a country of socio-political chaos. Lately, Georges Bwelle has started a program to provide birth certificates to the children who are being forgotten by the administration.

* – Dr. Georges has won many local nobilities and two global awards:

ASCOVIME’s Concept & Innovation.

In 2001, Dr. Bwelle founded ASCOVIME – (Association for the Competences for a Better Life,) which is a non-governmental humanitarian, non-religious and non-political organization dedicated to providing free medical care and educational supplies to marginalized villages in Cameroon and Central Africa. Dr. Bwelle’s novel strategy is to provide free medical care to parents and families while simultaneously providing children with the educational supplies they need to attend school and to thrive.

Through ASCOVIME, Dr. Bwelle has developed innovative, practical solutions to address these issues. His work is a testament to his originality and his ability to creatively solve problems and provide healing to those who would otherwise never receive care. Dr. Bwelle recognizes these medical and educational challenges and addresses them directly and effectively without charging any of his thousands of patients. Much of ASCOVIME’s success can be attributed to Dr. Bwelle’s belief in creating partnerships and collaborative relationships based on trust and transparency. Dr. Bwelle knows that in order to deeply affect the overall health of the villages that he visits, he must build equitable relationships with village members and village leaders.

Dr. Bwelle’s unparalleled vision comes directly from his personal experiences and from his intimate knowledge of the challenges in his home country. Cameroon has been steeped in a permanent social crisis since its independence from both France and the U.K. in the 1960’s. There is also a current crisis in leadership and a lack of leadership opportunities for the younger generation. The need for a leader who demonstrates commitment to communities in rural Cameroon is clear and present. Dr. Bwelle has been such a leader.

The Mobile Clinic.
ASCOVIME offers innovative mobile medical clinics along with educational and leadership opportunities for Cameroonian youth, villagers and women as well as for medical students and volunteers from the local and the international community.

ASCOVIME’s primary activities are weekend mobile medical clinics in which Dr. Bwelle and his team of volunteers distributes educational supplies and medical care to villagers. Dr. Bwelle visits about 35-40 villages per year, seeing up to 1,500 people or more in a single weekend. Nine months of the year, Dr. Bwelle, along with local and international volunteers, travels to villages and provides no-cost medical consultations, medications, and surgeries. All of this work is provided free of charge for villagers and is done with the consent and understanding of the local traditional chief. The resources for each trip come from Dr. Bwelle’s contribution of his salary and from volunteers’ collections of donations and medical supplies from their home countries. Dr. Bwelle’s team campaigns against tropical diseases, administers anti-parasitic drugs, and provides educational sessions that engage villagers in providing their own community healthcare. Cameroonian and international medical students and community volunteers teach villagers water sanitation and hygiene techniques that help prevent the spread of disease, effectively giving them information they can use to make their communities healthier.

“Georges of the Jungle” Somebody “very” Special.
Dr. Bwelle’s work is truly unique not only in his own country, but also in the entire West Africa region. ASCOVIME’s unique focus on providing free, mobile medical care as well as no-cost educational supplies to marginalized villages is unlike anything that is currently being done in Cameroon. In Africa, there are no other community-based organizations that provides free, comprehensive mobile medical clinics for families in conjunction with delivering free birth certificates, educational materials and resources for students and teachers in rural areas.

Dr. Georges Bwelle believes that access to medical care and educational opportunities are fundement human rights. Dr. Bwelle works tirelessly to ensure that children and families in Cameroon and Central Africa can receive equitable treatment and resources. A natural leader, Dr. Bwelle refuses to be a part of the “brain drain” that affects so many communities in Africa and he is dedicated to mentoring the next generation of doctors and medical professionals. He is committed to working in his own country and the surrounding region where he puts himself at risk by providing services that the government does not provide. He courageously works to stop the “structural violence”—in the form of inaccessible medical care and non-existent educational opportunities—that affects villagers in Central Africa on a daily basis.
Dr. Bwelle is all too familiar with the health and education challenges faced by his fellow citizens in Cameroon. It is his awareness of these profound problems and his desire to solve them that inspires Dr. Bwelle in his work with ASCOVIME:

Short Bio.
Full Name: GEORGES – ROGER MOTTO BWELLE

Gender: Male

Title of Medical Officer:
M.D., Visceral Surgeon – Central Hospital of Yaoundé, Cameroon,
Occupation: Founder – ASCOVIME Cameroon – (Association des Compétences pour une Vie Meilleure) – Yaoundé, Cameroon – Central Africa.

Websites:

http://www.ascovime.org/

http://www.ascovime.fr

Languages Spoken:

– Duala (Sawa) – tribal & local
-French & English
– Pidgin English / vehicular

Previous Awards.
2014 – The Patcha Foundation – Maryland, US.
2013 – Top 10 CNN Heroes – New York, US.
2012 – Tribal Bamun Award – Foumban Cameroon.
2010 – Indigenous Nobility Prince Position as Lifesaver – Nditam, Cameroon.

Link resources:

Glimpse of Cameroon
independence from both France and the U.K. in the 1960’s
* – Independence from France and the U.K. on January 1st 1960.
* – Cameroon is a country in Central Africa where government expenditures on health care equal $80 per person per year and most citizens have minimal access to medical care and education.
* – The average life expectancy at birth is 54 years, and the infant mortality rate is 62 in 1000 births. Health care accounts for a meager 5.1% of the GDP with 95% of health care costs coming out-of-pocket from Cameroonians.
* – An estimated 48% of the population lives below the poverty line, leaving few citizens eligible to afford health care.
* – Education receives 2.9% of the GDP and an average child receives 10 years of education.
* – Infection with tropical diseases is the leading cause of morbidity in Central Africa, resulting in an inability to attend school, work, or care for a family, effectually trapping those affected in a cycle of poverty. Tropical diseases, including malaria, are the leading causes of death for children under five in Cameroon.
Many Cameroonians live in isolated villages whose remoteness makes them difficult to access by education providers and health care workers. Families living in villages do not have access to doctors, secondary education, or the internationally funded public health services that are improving the lives of Cameroonians in large cities. The remoteness of these places in combination with a lack of funding from the government leave many rural Cameroonians without the education and health services they need to thrive. These are the very communities that Dr. Bwelle and ASCOVIME serve.

www.hitip.org
All photos by O. Mebouack©

Narcisse Sandjon; Making Films on the Local Leaders of the Youth.

Narcisse is an independent director, producer and filmmaker based in Yaoundé, Cameroon. He has worked for the CRTV – (Cameroon Radio Television) since 2009 as director of scriptwriting, cameraman and a spotlight designer. Beside his day job, Sandjon runs MALAFARÉ Productions, a small documentary film production company he created to realize his dream. As a self-taught African film director, Narcisse Sandjon has shown that when you have the passion to tell stories with a camera, you don’t have to spend three years in film school. Editing and directing for national television has been a tremendous opportunity for him to meditate with a camera. The life of Narcisse Sandjon is like a film; this is his story…

Narcisse Sandjon was born in Mbanga Balom on the coast of Littoral, Cameroon in 1976, and at age of 11, his parents moved to Jean Vespa — Carrière, a suburban area of Yaoundé, the Capital. Narcisse was the first born of the family of seven children. He dreamed of a successful career as a football player, especially a goalkeeper. Sadly the separation of his parents made Narcisse’s childhood a long walk with obstacles. As the eldest son, he was the one who protected his brothers and sisters from being bullied in school and from their abusive father. The kids also faced several placements in foster families.

After receiving his primary certificate, Sandjon attended many high schools in Yaoundé: College VOGT, College de la RETRAITE where he obtained his BEPC-GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) in 1994. He pursued his studies to the Lycée Elig-Essono of Yaoundé, another school where he suddenly dropped out in 1996 due to lack of scholarship and unsustainable family balance.

While sharing his story, Sandjon confessed that he never had a mentor – “a role model” to guide him and added, “Life actually didn’t offer me an elevator, but only the Great Wall of China.” Fortunately, Sandjon did not get bored after his studies stopped. He moved to Douala, the economic capital, where he signed up at JOWICE, a local movie editing center and spent nearly four years studying filmmaking, editing and recording. From 2008 to 2009 Narcisse was granted an internship to the CRTV where he successfully completed the program. On June 2014, he was recruited as cameraman and since then Narcisse Sandjon has been a full team member. He has worked in almost all the departments of the Cameroon Radio Television as producer, director, cameraman, and designer of ads, spots and video clips.

Mr. Sandjon has also been in charge of many well known TV shows such as, BEAUTÉ DE FÊTE CRTV, CROISSANCE-PLUS CRTV, TÉLÉ OPINION CRTV, PROGRAMME TÉLÉ HELLO! & BONJOUR! CRTV. On one of the famous Youth Talk Shows, "Jeunesse, Parlons-En” - Youth - Let’s Talk, Narcisse worked as a cameraman and director; he also designed spots and ads for the show.

During the Men’s World Cup Championship in 2014 Kenya and Female’s in 2015 in Egypt, Narcisse was cameraman operator for the Department of Sports and Entertainment of CRTV. Narcisse has directed many documentaries and promotional films for UNICEF, PEOPLE TELEVISION and the N.G.O SMILE TRAIN all over Central Africa and Cameroon.

Lately, Narcisse Sandjon has been working on a documentary series called “D’CLIK” - SHIFT. The idea is to portray the stories of current role models in the society to empower the youth. Narcisse has documented the portraits of fourteen personalities whose lives and actions will inspire the next generations of African leaders. One story by Narcisse has become an international 52 minute documentary film titled: Art Factor of Personal Development. In the film, Sandjo follows Issa Nyaphaga, an artist and activist based in the U.S. who travels to Cameroon every year to bring basic services to his tiny village in the heart of the jungle. It was shown in December 2014 in Ngambé-Tikar, the community where Issa is from, signifying a turning point in the community. Since then, a positive shift has been made toward Issa’s project by local leaders. The film has been screened in the U.S. and France. A version with English subtitles is available on DVD.

What is most interesting about Narcisse’s films, is his capacity to narrate stories with the strengths that has no academic limits, because Narcisse is a self taught filmmaker. In Africa of today, where China has massively supplied the black continent with low-cost technology, this filmmaker is worth following. More Africans will see Narcisse’s film on their affordable technology items. It’s a significant power of the new media in the beginning of the 21st century, but the decline of movie theatre as we knew it. Progress has its own dark side.

Nevertheless, Mr. Sandjon is nourishing a dream of coming the U.S. and filming the man he interviewed at a cartoon festival one day in the summer 2014, Dr. John A. Lent; a prominent scholar and critic of cartoon and comic art. Dr. Lent was a jury member for the Pulitzer Prize for Cartooning in New York City more than once.

Issa N. Nyaphaga
Artist & Human Rights Activist
Professor of Contemporary African Art, Social Justice & Cultural Diversity
connect@hitip.org

www.hitip.org
All photos by O. Mebouack©

Fela Kuti’s AfroBeat; or the Pan-African Revolution Through Music.

                                  By Issa Nyaphaga

Fela Kuti, is known in Africa as Fela Anikulapo Kuti. His “middle name” ANIKULAPO in Yoruba means “the one who has death in his pocket.” For the mainstream media and the public in the West he is simply Fela. Mr. Kuti has gone through many transformations his struggle for socio-political justice for Africans. Surely he has earned the title “The Black President of the Kalakuta Republic.” Fela Kuti is undeniably recognized as an emblematic figure standing against political oppression, the pioneer of revolutionary genre of music called “AfroBeat” that he created to support his fight for social justice. Mr. Kuti was a composer, a multi-instrumentalist musician and a performer. As a human rights activist and a political maverick, Mr. Anikulapo was arrested and beaten by the dictatorial regimes that ruled Nigeria at the time. In 2008, a theatrical production debuted portraying Fela Kuti’s life entitled simply “Fela”. It was the result of a collaboration between the AfroBeat band, Antibalas, and Tony Award-winner Bill T. Jones. The show was a major success on Broadway playing to sold out audiences for three good years. It was an historical breakthrough for an African artist in Western show biz.

Fela Kuti was born on October 15, 1938 in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. In the late 50s, he was sent to London to study medicine and decided to study classical music instead. Fela started with the trumpet but he did not stop there. He explored other music instruments, such as piano, guitar, saxophone, drum and voice, his ancestral medium. As a student in London, Fela struggled to sustain his studies and faced discrimination from British society. While looking for a room to rent, he would meet signs: “No blacks, no dogs!”, Kuti shared later. His country, the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was one of the ex-colonies the British Empire and was “Independent” in 1960, but the power belongs to an oligarchy, the legacy of colonialism. That period of Fela’s life shaped his revolutionary thinking toward the Establishment. Historically this was the turning point when Fela became the voice of the voiceless; his music was composed and performed to demand justice, basic rights, and Power to the People.

In 1963, Fela moved back to Nigeria to form Koola Lobitos, his first music band and collaborated with many other musicians who performed at the Shrine, his nightclub cabaret in the heart of (the neighborhood he independently proclaimed “Kalakuta Republic”) in the city of Lagos. In 1967, he traveled Ghana for residency in need of new musical horizons. That was where Fela first created the pioneering music concept baptized; AfroBeat.

Why does Mr. Kuti’s music claims “Black Power” in such a “mono-ethnic” society like in Nigeria where the last English colonist left 30 years ago? Because in the minds the African intellectuals, Colonization is not only associated to the color of a skin or being only from a European origin; it is a mentality, an attitude toward the so-called “Indigenous” and the awkward behavior of a handful of rulers who sat on Nigeria’s 130 millions people’ wealth. That is the social injustice, corruption, nepotism and grid issues. Nigeria has a rich soil but poor people. Anikolapo-Kuti always denounces in his musical work and speeches. Beyond the successful message that resonates the aspirations of the mass of underserved populations, AfroBeat’s rhythm is indeed seductive to the victims of the neo-colonialism the author is pointing out. This is what Fela aims to overcome with his Afrobeat; he wants power returned to the people as it was before colonialism; Black Power Back to the People.

The king of AfroBeat did not become a popular and an inspiring leader by historical mistake; he came from generations of political opposition against the Establishment in his country. His mother Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti was political activist and a leader of the feminist movement in Nigeria. His father Oludotun Ransome-Kuti was a clergyman and the leader the Nigerian Teachers’ Union. The young Fela grew up being fed with all the ingredients to become the maverick who would carry higher the torch of social justice. In addition, looking at Fela’s background, the “black president” shares a close “cousinery” with the legendary writer, and Nobel Prize winner, Wole Soyinka. Soyinka is the first ever African to win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1984 with the book “The Lion and the Jewel”.

In the heart of the Black Panther movement, Fela traveled on a tour with his band to the U.S. and spent almost a year in Los Angeles. While in the United States, Fela Kuti discovered the struggle of Black activists and their slogan “All Power to the People” resonated to the man who could not wait to fight neo-colonialism, and his U.S. experience strongly influenced the lyrics in his music. After he returned to Nigeria, Anikolapo changed the name of the band to Nigeria ’70, but kept the concept of AfroBeat, which remains indeed one of the most trans-cultural sounds today.

Fela Ransome Anikolapo Kuti died on August 3, 1997 in Lagos. Over one million people attended his funeral service in Kalakuta Republic where he lived the most gorgeous moments of his life.
One critic has confessed that, “you just don’t describe his music; AfroBeat is an indescribable genre of music, you gotta live it.” But Wikipedia has tried the exercise, and here it’s, with the final touch about the mythical drummer Tony Allen:
“The musical style of Felá is called AfroBeat style he largely created, which is a complex fusion ofJazz, Funk, Ghanaian/Nigerian High-life, psychedelic rock, and traditional West African chants and rhythms. Afrobeat also borrows heavily from the native “tinker pan” African-style percussion that Kuti acquired while studying in Ghana with Hugh Massekela, under the uncanny Hedzoleh Soundz. The importance of the input of Tony Allen (Fela’s drummer of twenty years) in the creation of Afrobeat cannot be overstated. Fela once famously stated that “without Tony Allen, there would be no Afrobeat”.

Issa N. Nyaphaga
Artist, Cartoonist & Human Rights Activist
Professor of Contemporary African Art, Social Justice & Cultural Diversity
Santa Fe, New Mexico – USA – Oct. 14, 2015.
www.hitip.org

Hunter Campbell “Patch” Adams

The Clown with a Big Heart

is a social activist, citizen diplomat, professional clown, performer, and author. He founded the Gesundheit! Institute in 1972. Every year he organizes a group of volunteers from around the world to travel to various countries where they dress and perform as clowns, bringing hope and joy to orphans, patients, and others in need. His life inspired the film Patch Adams, starring Robin Williams. Adams promotes a different health care model (i.e. one not funded by insurance policies) in collaboration with the Gesundheit! Institute.

His path crossed Issa’s because of John Lent, an American writer and cartoon and comic art critic, who has published articles about Issa and Patch. Because of their connection, Issa and Patch are working on a project to combine art and clown’s play, which will be provide humor and healing for people in hospitals and clinics in Cameroon.

Ibrahim Abdoulaye –

Since ever he was a child, Ibrahim barely remembers the last time he stood up and walked. Ibrahim was victim of Polio disease at the age of one and half year old in his village in N’ditam. Because of the lack of information in his family, his parents were not able to provide Ibrahim with Polio vaccination. But Ibrahim showing that even sitting the wheelchair you can accomplish your dream.

Mobility with dignity

The physical condition of Ibrahim has made him resilient to the challenge he faces in his every day’s life. From the age of three to nine years old, the young boy crawled down most of his childhood. In a rural African village, taboo is rampant in the communities. Fortunately, Ibrahim has less prejudice in Nditam and also the support of his entire village. In 2002, Ibrahim was granted with his ever first tricycle donated by HITIP (Hope International For Tikar People) a community-based organization working to improve the quality of life of the marginalized, indigenous people in Mbam and Kim region, where Ibrahim is from. The wheelchair has helped the young boy to gain his dignity – he couldn’t any longer be carried to run little errands such as going to the toilet, getting himself around the village and with his friends. The same tricycle helped Ibrahim to complete his primary education. Almost a decade after Ibrahim received his first wheelchair; he has become a strong young leader and a man with a vision for his life.

A gifted soul

In Nditam, a lost village in the middle of the equatorial rainforest, with no infrastructure – no running water, no electricity and medical center, Ibrahim has developed skills of a technician – he is the tech repair guy of the village. He fixes flashlights, radios, wheelchairs, bicycles and even generators. The villagers are amazed how the talent of a young individual with disabilities has become a tremendous support to the community.
Beside his passion as technician, Ibrahim is a great fan of soccer/football game. In Cameroon, Soccer/football is not only a game as we would think, it is a religion, and everybody is involved; children, adolescents, women, adults and elders. And for those who are not naturally granted with two legs, they can go play with braces or crutches. Ibrahim knows early in his life that he wouldn’t play the ball himself, and for a while he cheered the teams sitting on a wheelchair and one day he felt like not only waiting next to the stadium, he wanted to be in the game and field on the grass under the wheels of his tricycle, since he cannot stand and run.

Fair winner

In the Summer 2009, HITIP, the same local organization launched the soccer/football championship among the villages. And the event took place in Nditam his home-based village; it was the perfect opportunity for Ibrahim to show how much he could contribute to the championship. Quickly, Ibrahim formed a team of young soccer players and started training them three times a week. And he baptized his team; Meliti Football Club of N’ditam. Meliti is the name of the most famous tikar gods, symbolized as a character of a mask, which are the spirits of Tikar ancestors. The mythology of Meliti is known as the son who committed a matricide – the murder of his mother. With his oval and flat back head, Meliti has an impressive appearance, and has a single red feather on the top of his forehead, that gives him a particular look. Meliti has one extraordinary affect on the Tikar people; they adore and hate him in the same time, mostly women and young females. However, this name brought luck to the team of coach Ibrahim who has won the first soccer/football tournament. Since then, Meliti Football Club has doubled final cup winner of the Championship in N’ditam.
Along with his exciting hobby as soccer lover, Ibrahim has been a fellow for the computer and solar provided by Linux Friends Solar. The young coach on the wheelchair is now preparing to complete the secondary education.

The movie star in rural African

In the countryside of Africa where superstitious beliefs are rooted in the culture, taboo and prejudice are the daily challenge of women, poor or the disabled. Ibrahim’s achievements were brought to the attention of Narcisse Sandjon; a Cameroonian filmmaker based in the city of Yaoundé. Early in the summer 2015, a local Narcisse Sandjon came to interview and follow Ibrahim for documentary film project on his life. Narcisse said he was interested to film him because Ibrahim is one the rare person with disability who doesn’t beg. Then I thought maybe the coach on the wheelchair is kind of cool story.

While filming Ibrahim in N’ditam, the young man said: “Then years ago, my dream was to stand and walk. Today my dream is to leave this village to go beyond the borders of my country to receive knowledge and come back to make significant changes.”

At Blupela, our answer is: Why not! If you were able to change things in the daily of your village and give two victories to your village, you can inspire the world.

Good luck Ibrahim!

To connect with Ibrahim Abdoulaye, contact:
Issa N. Nyaphaga
Artist, Cartoonist & Human Rights Activist
Professor of Contemporary African Art, Social Justice & Cultural Diversity
Santa Fe, New Mexico – USA – January 25, 2015.
connect@hitip.org

Enoh Meyomesse:

– The Writer, the Prison and the Pen of Steel!

In most political imprisonments of an artist, musician, writer, poet or intellectual, the incarcerated does not claim their freedom directly to the head of state. After Mr. Enoh Meyomesse spent 40 months in prison for his ideas and politically opposing Paul Biya, president of Cameroon in power since November 06, 1982, Enoh wrote an open letter to Paul Biya asking for his release. This writer and historian had a very little chance winning against the president but he won the historic battle of Freedom for journalists and artists in one of the most repressive regimes in the African continent.

According to PEN Internatinal London, one of the organizations that has been active on the case of the Cameroonian writer and the global campaign “Free Enoh”, an open letter was wrote by Enoh Meyomesse to President Biya before his release in April 2015, in these terms: “President of the Republic – once again I am coming with humility to request your intervention to ensure that I can finally recover my Liberty. Forty months in Kondengui’s prison, you cannot imagine what it does to a person. Your life stops functioning.”

Enoh was born in the town of Ebolowa in 1954 in South Cameroon. He graduated from the Institute of Political Sciences in Strasbourg, France. After failing to realize his dream of living in the U.S., Enoh returned to his native Cameroon to change the society through his ideas and writings. Enoh is a multimedia writer, poet, play-writer and essayist and has published over 35 books. Enoh writes in both French and Bulu, his native language, and was a member of ADELF (Association des Ecrivains de Langue Française in Paris.)

Enoh Meyomesse is the most well known writer in Cameroon today. In the country where over 40% of children under 10 today will have a little opportunity to read a book, Enoh Meyomesse through his courage has made a huge impact in the mind of his fellow citizens in order to positively affect the Culture. “I cannot walk 15 steps without someone stopping me to congratulate me… Sometimes I take a cab and end up not paying for the ride because of my fame.” Confessed Enoh to me during an interview.

In November 22nd, 2011, while returning from a trip in Singapore, Enoh Meyomesse was arrested at the Nsimalen airport in Yaoundé by the Gendarmerie and brought to S.E.D. He was charged with robbery and accused of attempting a “coup d’état” in order to overthrow the government of Cameroon. In the October before his arrest, Enoh Meyomesse had run against President Paul Biya during the presidential election. In addition, many of his publications criticized the authorities and method of governance in Cameroon.

He was relocated to Bertoua, in the East of the country where he spent 30 days in solitary confinement in the draconian conditions — he slept on the cement floor next to his excrements and took only 3 baths. This arrest was also during the important 30-day mourning period after the death of his father. He was then relocated to Kodendui prison in Yaoundé. A decree was signed not to provide food, paper, pen and daylight to the writer. However, his popularity in the country brought attention and compassion of the guards in the jail, who sporadically provided him with unofficial dishes.

Enoh Meyomesse during an interview with Issa Nyaphaga in Yaoundé in July 2015.
photo by O. Mebouack

A female activist, Bergeline Doumo, blew the whistle and alerted the local newspapers and the international community about the incarceration of Enoh. Various human rights organizations and the African diaspora quickly became aware of the violation of his rights and the inhumane conditions Mister Enoh was being held in. However, the next month a judge ordered a six-month extension of his detention, and in December 2012 the writer was charged afresh, found guilty of armed robbery and the illegal sale of gold, and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

The international writer’s organization PEN International, led by CODE and Amnesty International carried out massive campaigns denouncing the marginalization of the writer. During one of his visit in Europe, the Cameroonian president Paul Biya was embarrassed and confronted by Diasporas members exhibiting “Free Enoh” posters at the hotel where the Biya was staying.

According to the writer, even though the military justice system was following his case, he believes the charges against him were politically motivated. As the intellectual was held for in Kodengui prison, an episode of legal battles went on for other 39 months.

Along with judiciary appeals and campaigns of lobbying by PEN, CODE and other writers such as Alain Mabankou (Congo) and Patrice Nganang (Cameroon), the hard work of the resistance against unequal justice to Enoh finally paid off. Enoh Meyomesse Dieudonné was finally freed in April 2015. The Tribunal of Foundi in Yaoundé considered Enoh’s term to have been served. The poet, who has now left Kodengui prison and is now enjoying his new Freedom, will return to the supreme court of Cameroon with his lawyers for an appeal to clear his record completely.

As Enoh folds a printed article from the local paper, I couldn’t hesitate to snap him with my iPhone. These are the two mediums (paper & ink) have always been part of Enoh’s life.
Photo by Ixx@ Nyaphaga©2015

In an article published earlier this year in the Guardian in London, it appeared that:
The author has been a major focus for the Writers at Risk programme at English PEN, with supporters sending him books and writing material, lobbying authorities and publishing his work. In an open letter to Meyomesse, published late last year, the acclaimed Congolese author Alain Mabanckou wrote: “We will never cease to speak your name and to denounce, from every rooftop of the world, the injustice that befell you and the contempt shown by the justice system towards you.”

When I spoke to him during an interview in his hometown in Yaoundé, he admitted that the government of Cameroon has made some progess in the country, “but not enough to improve the lives Cameroonians,” he said.

As the African proverb says: – “If you want to get the mangoes, shake the trunk of the mango tree.” It was worth for Enoh try and gain little freedom for his people. A courageous sacrifice, that will remain forever in the annals of history of Cameroon.
Free Enoh and Vive Enoh!

Issa N. Nyaphaga
Artist, Cartoonist & Human Rights Activist
Professor of Contemporary African Art, Social Justice & Cultural Diversity
Santa Fe, New Mexico – USA – January 25, 2015.
– “If You Don’t Stand For Somethings, You’ll Fall For Anything!”
Donate here: connect@hitip.org – Thanks

VIDEO INTERVIEW IN ENGLISH

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRi4zCiclRY

“There are certain advantages to having a disability,” he said. “I’m used to having to do things 10 times, 20 times, 30 times. That’s an advantage in the workplace. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve worked with who are ready to quit after something doesn’t work the first time.”

“I can’t say there’s anything that I can’t do… just things that I haven’t done yet,”

Photo and Quote Reference: https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/richie-parker-nascar-racing-team-engineer

https://youtu.be/xj-a0akuVZ0

Patti Dobrowolski – Draw your future. Take control of your life.

ONE WORLD BLUE

Dr. Georges Bwelle