Failures make you stronger and better

I worked with an organisation for 9months on the 17sustainable goals of agenda 2030 which I kept hoping and wishing for success until I had to give up on the organisation but not on my dreams to be a change maker.

I worked at the organisation as a gender expert and at the start we were about 5 but as time went on we remained 2. But as gender experts we were trained to do everything and write projects on everything regardless of the field and it was good at the start

We had all sorts of workers from allover Cameroon with different skills whether educated or not. At the start our director or boss as we called him made us sign an agreement form which stated that we will do a 3months probation and an allowance of 10,000-50,000frs allowance maybe made available to us every month. When it was time to pay off he brought logic into it saying there was a maybe in the clause and he has no money for us. We complained but continued working faithfully. We went for fieldwork in villages and we were only given transport to go, no allowance and anything we needed for the fieldwork we provided for ourselves. During our visit to baie metoko we were poorly received because they were not aware of our coming but our stay there later on was good because the people had so much hope on us together with those at baie manya. The 3months probation period passed but we were not compensated even though he made us believe that we were going to receive money and a lot of it too but no franc was given us. We continued to work for him for another 3months because we knew it was going to get better soon and we already had a bond among ourselves that no matter the condition we will stick together that made it 6months without any progress. We were still at the same point and even the work we went to do in the villages, no impact has been made in lives of those people.

It was time for him to recognise us as his workers so he decided to sign a contract with us promising to pay each person with at least 100,000frs per month where he was going to get the money to pay us only God knows. The population had reduced drastically because we were about 600 and not up to 100 people signed to.work.with him. People came from far away places, paid rents, fed themselves and paid their bills yet received nothing as compensation which was promised them so they gave up and left.

Those of us who signed the contract had high hopes that there was money for work to be executed and then we too will receive salaries every 15-20th of each month but when it was time he travelled promising to.come back with salaries which he did not keep. After the 2nd month people started giving up and stopped coming knowing that when he returns, they too will return but the 3months elapsed without us seeing him neither did we do any work as per the goals or received any salary so I then gave up.

When I gave up I didn't give up working for organisations because I had the zeal to learn, gain experiences even just for nothing so I kept searching till I came to find another place to volunteer. There I'm learning more than what money can give, I got to hear about world pulse and digital empowerment and lots more and I'm thankful to the previous organisation because it moulded me as it was my first experience though disappointing. I discivered my passion to work no matter the conditions and it has thought me that to get to my destination I have so many junctions to pass and it made me even stronger.

My sisters, yours might not be career oriented like mine but never give up or change who you because someone out there has used you or your knowledge and u gained nothing from it.. Be yourself and keep working hard because the best is yet to come