The story of Princess Abumbi Prudence
Bafut, Cameroon
My story is about following what you believe. It is about staying.
I come from the Bafut Royal Palace in Northwest Cameroon. For more than a decade, our region has lived through crisis and displacement. Life changed around us. School bells were replaced by gunshots. Young people disappeared into the bushes. Families were separated. Dreams were interrupted.
I watched young people I knew struggle to find a way forward. Girls who once dreamed of becoming doctors faced lives they had never imagined. Young men with ambitions and talents were surrounded by a reality that offered them very few choices.
I could have left.
But I kept asking myself one question:
If we leave, who will rebuild Bafut?
So I stayed.
I began with what was around me: our land, our hands and the knowledge of our elders.
A few displaced young people and I started farming. Our elders showed us what they had learned from generations before them: how to work with the soil, how to grow food naturally and how to respect the land.
It was small.
But sometimes hope starts with something very small.
That beginning grew into the Royals Eco Village Bafut, a place where young people and women can learn skills, grow food, work together and begin to believe in themselves again.
For me, giving someone a skill is about much more than employment.
When a young person learns to make a shoe, sew a dress, process food, farm or pick up a camera and tell their own story, something changes inside them.
They begin to understand:
I still have something to give.
My life still has value.
I still have a future.
That is what drives me.
We are because of each other
I believe deeply in Ubuntu.
In Bafut, we understand it as: I am because you are, and you are because I am.
When one mother has no food, someone shares. When one young person loses hope, someone reaches out. When one family suffers, the community feels it.
In difficult times, this togetherness becomes a kind of strength.
And I believe this is something the world needs to remember.
I also carry the responsibility of being an Indigenous Wisdom Torch Bearer. The knowledge of our elders (farming, craft, stories, traditions and our relationship with the land) must not disappear.
Our ancestors left us more than memories.
They left us knowledge.
And I believe that knowledge can help us build tomorrow.
I want young people to see that they do not have to run away to have a future. I want women and girls to know that their voices matter. I want our communities to have the confidence to feed themselves, create opportunities and rebuild together.
I don’t pretend that we have all the answers.
But I have seen what happens when people start believing they can change anything.
And I have seen what happens when they start believing in each other.
That is why I continue.
Because perhaps peace does not always begin with something enormous.
Perhaps it begins with a group of young people under a tree.
A piece of land.
An elder willing to share what they know.
A woman given an opportunity.
And someone saying:
“We are still here.
So let’s build.”
This is my story.
This is the story of Bafut.
And this is why I stayed.
Princess Abumbi Prudence
Bafut, Cameroon
195in365 Global Voice
