ident.africa was founded on the 22nd July 2004 by Mr. Fred-Eric Essam and his friends, in order to balance the education deficit in Africa. Starting with only 7 members, the association from Cologne has now 24 volunteers in Germany and several helping hands in Cameroon.
comdivision is known for one of it's main mission in knowledge transfer, therefore we liked the idea of investing in future development by education. That is why we engaged with ident.africa first in 2012 and support since then projects to help people in Cameroon to build education and social services for the local community. We think that the setup of a working local education community is the best way to establish a local business.
Since a goal-oriented work is only possible with a profound understanding of the social, economical and political structure, ident.africa founded another NGO directly in Cameroon. The complete project monitoring is carried out at site by the coordination office in Douala:
- Survey of the project proposals
- Monitoring of project execution
- Distribution of supplies and donations
- Control of the invested budget and donations
Furthermore, the coordination office supports ident.africa with the networking to parters in Cameroon and coordinates the travels of German delegations.
2019 Initiative: comdivision Group is committed to social responsibility and is supporting the women empowerment project of ident.africa e.V.
ident.africa e.V. is proud to support the initiative of young women in Cameroon starting in early 2020 with the support of the Münster-based comdivision group. This initiative for the empowerment of women is targeted specifically to support especially young women through “empowerment” and self-employment.
These women will produce textiles in forms of school uniforms, school bags, bed linen, desk sheets and simple pieces of clothing and sell them to the local population. Of course, they are buying the material for this purpose locally. According to Fred-Eric Essam, founder and chairman of the association – “a dedicated sopport of young women represents a concrete answer to the migration issue and a chance for a better education of their children and a more successful development for the whole family.”
The contribution of 1,000 euros will once again cover the costs of the acquisition of 7 additional sewing machines sponsored by comdivision. Yves Sandfort, founder of the comdivision comments: “For us it is important that our annual Christmas contribution goes into a sustainable and meaningful project. Since the success of the ident.africa projects is evident, we decided to use this year’s donation to co-finance the project for “empowerment” and self-employment”.
In the framework of this project ident.africa e.V. supports the initiative of 100 young women in Cameroon in the current year. “The basic machines with foot operated pedal mechanism are locally priced around 130 Euros. One hundred (100) such sewing machines will be purchased in the current year 2020, thus giving the opportunity to create 100 jobs, especially in the informal sector”. Essam explains. Currently, young female workers are using the Boboyo multi-purpose building (multifunctional room) and run their own sewing facility as an education and training centre, which offers places for sixty (60) women.
