My first memory of tasting a soft drink was in Cameroon. During my first stay with my parents. I was 5 years old. [...] The soda was so good in its glass bottle! Back then, sodas were bought like beers in returnable glass bottles transported in crates. This system lasted until around 2010, then beverage manufacturers gradually switched to plastic. [...] The famous PET took hold, and although glass still exists, it has become a minority and is reserved mainly for bars and drinking establishments. Today, sugary drinks come in plastic bottles and beer in aluminium cans. The effect was not long in coming. [...]

If you travel through Cameroon today, you will be struck by the accumulation of plastics everywhere. The ecological catastrophe is underway.

During our 2020 trip, seeing a plastic dump at the entrance to my village made me leap into action. [...] I said to myself: "something must be done". A month later, Covid arrived and my good intentions were drowned in the pandemic. Back in 2023, I had no more excuses.

Someone once said that one can only have one country. They were wrong. Just as we most often have two parents, we can have two countries. [...]

My mother is France. She gave me everything. From that little singing accent that comes back strong and makes Parisians smile [...], to the opportunity to benefit from a vast education, both academic and cultural. My father is Cameroon. He too has given me a great deal: a wealth that cannot be counted in euros or francs but in curiosity, in openness (or in the number of cousins!), and roots that have allowed me, and still allow me, to grow wherever I find myself.

The story of the creation of our association

by its president, Marie-Agnès

The situation had not improved and I also learned that the villagers were using the bottles to start fires in their fields. [...] I tried to talk about it and found in one of my younger brothers on the ground an attentive ear and the will to do something. That was all it took.

The association Là où coule la Sanaga was truly born there, in Nkakanzock, even though its legal existence only came a few weeks later in the Gers, upon my return to France. [...]

Other family members and friends in Cameroon, and the rest of the family in France, also answered the call, and with a little help, we may not manage to stop the scourge but at least to awaken a few consciences and rid the country's soil and air of some of this pollution!

During this stay, the issue of access to healthcare also came back into our spotlight. A 12-year-old child passed away. A loss that could have been prevented with proper medical follow-up. Why not combine both needs by offering healthcare campaigns to villages that are committed to collecting recyclables? This is how everything falls into place and one suddenly feels that yes, the situation can be improved, there is no fatalism, just problems to be solved, one by one or two by two!

Meet our amazing team!