IDPs in Yaounde braving odds to earn a living.

Braving the odds to make ends meet in a city described by many as one which is hard to survive in, these IDPs have resulted to petty businesses, skills acquisition to withstand the challenges.

Talking to The Guardian Post, some of the IDPs recounted how it has been like, living in Yaounde and what they have been doing to make life going.

“I am an IDP here in Yaounde. I come from the North West Region. I left the region because of the war and last year, I settled in Yaounde,” Rosaline, an IDP, recounted. 

“When I got here there was no money to go to school that year, so as you can see I am selling fish roll. I believe that the money I have gathered since then and some my guardian will add will be able to enroll me in school this coming academic year,” she explained further.

Sharing in the same plight as Rosaline, another IDP, Nyuykinyuy Sandrine, gave her version of adaptation strategies in Yaounde.

“I left Santa with my parents because of the unrest over there. To survive here in Yaounde, we even knew before coming that it will not be easy. But because we had to live, we took the challenge and came here,” she recounted. 

“Now we work on people’s farms here in Yaounde and get paid. For now I haven’t started going to school because the money we make is usually not much. But once we have a better job that can give us much money, my parents have promised that they will send me to school,” Nyuykinyuy said.

“On days that we are not in the farm, I sell boiled groundnut,” she added. 

While others have settled for petty businesses and hawking, others have resorted to learning a trade.

Agbor Maurice narrated that: “I left Nguti because of the armed conflict. For now, I am learning barbing in a barbershop just beside our house. Not everyone who is successful went to school and I believe that even if I don’t go to school I will be great and make money to take care of myself and my family”. 

“Thank God I know how to read and write and to me that is what matters most,” he explained.

Yet other IDPs we came across wore sad faces as they pleaded for support. One of them who had the courage to speak to us and whose only name we got as Frida recounted her plights as an IDP in Yaounde.

“The little girl you see with me is my baby. After her father abandoned us, I came to Yaounde to see what life I can make for myself and my daughter,” she explained, weeping.

“My daughter is three years but has not started going to school because I don’t have money to send her even to a government nursery school. My cousin and her husband have been the ones taking care of us all this while with feeding and even clothing. My cousin’s husband has given us a room to live in for the meantime,” she added.

“All I need is a little amount of money like capital to start cooking food and selling even in schools so that by next year or mid-term, I can send my daughter to school and we can start our lives until when her father will come back to help us,” Frida stated.  

“I cannot ask my cousin and her husband for money because they have done enough for me and my daughter already. They too have their own responsibilities,” she said.

Meanwhile, Asongwane Susan, who shares a similar challenge, hopes she can get a job even as a cleaner. 

Despite the challenges faced by these IDPs, others with similar problems remain in the dark yet to be discovered.

Some Yaounde city dwellers who have this far been kind on some of these IDPs encourage others to follow suit as they warn of a rise in juvenile delinquency if the plights of these IDPs who have flooded the city are not looked into.

Cyprain Bekhali (Journalism student on internship)

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3223 of Sunday September 08, 2024