Giving back home: The example of Eyumema USA Inc..

The name, which signifies a child recalling and remembering the voice of her mother, even while dwelling in a far away land, is symbolic of typical African migration, where the migrant fights tooth and nail, never to forget her roots.

This love of home translates in the migrant’s effort to invest back home, or if circumstances are not so favourable, to continue giving financial support to sustain and improving the living conditions of family members back home.

This trend is not only among Manyu migrants but cuts across the different ethnic groups in Cameroon. 

It is also in professional and alumni associations, where members consistently try to give back to their former schools, offering varied kinds of support.

Specifically, about Eyumema, the intervention of the women, during school resumption, has been consistent for almost a decade now. 

Even in the heat of the Anglophone crisis, we do remember them coming down to Eyumojock, the Subdivisional capital, with school kit every September, to help their less fortunate ones.

This year, their refurbishing of the preventive hospital in Mamfe and the building of a new maternity ward in that hospital, was highly mediatised. 

The awareness Eyumema creates across Manyu Division, and perhaps in the South West Region and beyond, is causing serious shifts in attitude towards the girl child. 

Previously, the average Manyu man and even woman believed that the best thing that could happen to a family was to have a male child. “Ojih mmon nneh nduhm areh akpang”, [He who gives birth to a male child, gives birth to a hero], they formerly believed. 

This atavistic mindset created a situation where many girls were not sent to school, especially where resources are lean and the number of children too many for the father to pay fees and buy school needs for all. 

The girl child was always the first to be withdrawn from school, when funds could not go round to educate all the children.

Thanks to Eyumema, attitudes are changing and changing fast because the women are proving our elders wrong. 

Indeed, the average Manyu family now pays equal attention to the education of the girl child, just as he or she does for the male child. 

Migration, dev’t & social change

Over the years, and taking the context depicted above, only young men used to be sent abroad for studies. 

A few of them came back and joined the public service while the majority never amounted to anything.

At worst, they and their children remained abroad, and were completely forgotten by their families. The few decades that had seen a few educated Manyu women migrating abroad is changing the scenario, as depicted above. 

It comes to corroborate findings from studies carried out by some experts on migration, that the phenomenon has a direct link with development and social change in many African communities. 

Findings show that households, with a member living abroad, spend more on education and food as well as having higher savings than households with no members abroad.

Statistics on migration show that Cameroonians principally migrate to Europe, constituting 36.8 % of African migrants and only 6.5% of African migrants in the United States.

This has not stopped Eyumema from creating a significant impact back home. And as the current National President, Diana Ebai confessed, they are in the process of spreading their tentacles further afield.

Consequently, they are implanting Eyumema branches in Europe, Canada, Equatorial Guinea, and are in the process of creating a permanent home front in Cameroon. 

This article was first published in The Guardian Post Edition No:3520 of Friday August 01, 2025