Launching of YOCOFOBA - Anike Foundation Multimedia Center began with an introductory word by Mbifi Roy Ntsinu, General Secretary of YOCOFOBA. Mbifi Valentine Mbifi, President of the organization, then read a speech by Dr. Segun Ige, President of Anike Foundation. Dr. Ige urged the youths of Kedjom Keku to take advantage of the new center, saying, “We at Anike Foundation believe that education is the key to lifting Africa from its depth of poverty and its youths from the vestiges of desperation.” He went on to call the center “our first step toward extending educational benefits to the Cameroonian youths.”

YOCOFOBA is a nonprofit organization (also known as an NGO) staffed entirely by volunteers in Kedjom Keku, a rural community in Cameroon. It focuses on supporting youths through education on health issues and job assistance. Through the multimedia center, it hopes to make computers and the internet available to youths and community members, many of whom have no access to these resources.

“There are a lot of students who don’t know much about the computer,” Leslie Yeban, a member of YOCOFOBA, said. Akongdo Awonti Denis, a marketing technician who attended the launching, said, “Most Africans still see the computer as a mysterious thing, so I want to thank our founders, Anike Foundation, for coming to break that barrier.” YOCOFOBA staff plan to offer computer lessons to youth and members of the community. In addition to adding computers to the center, they hope to expand their library to include books on agriculture and climate change, topics of great interest to Kedjom Keku’s residents.

After the launching ceremony, several leaders of YOCOFOBA spent time in the small, sunny multimedia center. Sitting next to a laptop an surrounded by piles of books, Vice President Liakutai Laurence Toh expressed pleasure with YOCOFOBA’s activities, as well as hope for the center’s future benefit to the community. “Our library, we started from nothing, and today, we have achieved more than what we even expected.”.