Aunty Grace: A Hero Among Us In Cameroon

There is a small town called Santchou, located in the Western region of Cameroon in West Africa, that borders a lush and vibrant wildlife reserve. Here, on a typical day, street vendors gather along the busy highway selling an assortment of fresh fruits. The air is often filled with sweet aromas from spiced and roasted fish and plantains cooked by women on the side of the road. Shopkeepers sit outside their shops waiting for customers. The town’s small municipal office, with its severely faded Cameroonian flag, can be easily spotted from the highway. 

Tucked away in this small town, away from the busy highway, is a school with a remarkable vision where children enjoy a solid and foundational education. They have this privilege thanks to one woman in particular: Aunty Grace.

All too often when we celebrate women changing the world, we hear stories of first ladies, celebrities, and politicians. But as we celebrate this international women’s day, allow me to highlight for you a lesser-known but equally visionary and powerful African woman who has impacted the lives of many Cameroonian children, including mine. She is known to her kids, pupils, students and friends affectionately as Aunty Grace and she is a true educator.

I first met Tawe Grace Nfah when I was 5 years old. I had just moved to Yaoundé, the capital city, from my village, Luh, in the North West Region of Cameroon. After spending my early years with my grandparents in the village, I was moving to live with my mother to get a better education. Aunty Grace lived with us in a poor neighborhood of the sprawling city, while she attended a teacher’s training college.

 Aunty Grace had never planned to be a teacher. She had in fact stumbled into teaching by accident. A love story is how she describes it. It happened when she had unexpectedly lost the sponsorship she needed to finish her secondary school education. She had just one year left to graduate but her parents could not afford to keep her in school. Determined to find a way to continue her education, she walked to the nearest primary school in her village and applied for a teaching job. She was offered a job.

It was at this primary school that she realized her gift for teaching. When she wrote her first teaching notes, the headmaster was so impressed that he gathered the other teachers and read her exemplary teaching notes to them. Unlike the other teachers, she had not been to a teacher’s training college. It was there that she fell in love with teaching and its transformative power to change lives.

A few years later, when she moved to Yaoundé for further training focusing on guidance and counselling, Aunty Grace would continue honing her teaching skills. After school, she tutored students in the neighborhood including myself. How patient she was when I was slow to understand! Blending her motherly love and care with her teaching and counseling skills, she spent hours with me, working diligently as I learned little by little. She taught me how to study until studying became second nature to me. More than twenty years later, as I work with countries around the world to improve access to quality surgical care for the poor and vulnerable, I often think of Aunty Grace and her catalytic role in my life and am profoundly grateful for those innumerable hours she spent teaching and mentoring me.

Today Aunty Grace lives in Santchou, a small town with a population of about 30,000 people. She moved there twenty years ago to teach at a public high school. When she first arrived, she had no intention of staying longer than a year because Santchou was very remote. However, she chose to stay. When asked why she chose to stay, she answers simply that she stayed for nothing but the children. She saw the need to improve the quality of education for children in Santchou and so she stayed.

 In 2006, working with a friend, she founded a primary and secondary school, providing quality education to children who have never before had such an opportunity. Through Montessori English Secondary and High School Santchou (MESHS), Aunty Grace aims to build the hearts and minds of the youth through high quality education, creating a generation of diverse ethical and innovative leaders to transform the nation and the continent. When I visited the school a few months ago, I was amazed at the institution she had built with very limited resources.

Enrollment at MESHS has steadily increased, from about 100 students in 2006 to its current 850 students. In recent years, the school board has had to increase its capacity significantly to accommodate hundreds of children from the conflict-ridden Anglophone regions of the country. According to UNICEF, over 80% of schools in the two Anglophone regions have closed, affecting more than 600,000 children. 

 MESHS has developed a reputation in the region for high quality education for all students. Indeed, Aunty Grace truly believes that all children have a right to quality education. Despite having limited funds, she ensures that scholarships are available for orphans and children whose parents cannot afford to send them to school. Much of the scholarships are included in the school’s budget, but some comes informally, from Aunty Grace’s own modest salary.

She welcomes children from neighboring villages, many of whom live with her. With her own funds, she provides room and board for them. She rented a neighboring home in order to house more children. There are plans to build a boarding house for pupils who come from distant regions to study at her school. She wants to turn away no one who is eager to learn because she is convinced that with a strong education, students can change their own lives, the lives of their loved ones and the future of the continent for the better.

As the school has grown, so has Aunty Grace’s vision for it. She dreams now of adding a professional nursing school and a teacher’s training college although it’s not exactly clear to her where the funds for this will come from. 

Africa continues to face many economic, social and political challenges across the continent, from healthcare crises such as Ebola and COVID-19, to agricultural challenges due to global climate change, poor governance issues, and rising terrorist threats. Still, we have made much progress since our liberation from colonial forces. Africans now have better access to education and healthcare, fewer food shortages, and improving governance in many countries. Africa is better and stronger today than it was half a century ago. Much of the credit for this progress must be awarded to extraordinary women like Aunty Grace who are building the continent on their very own shoulders, one child at a time. As we celebrate the accomplishments of incredible women today, we must remember to celebrate and support powerful and visionary women like Aunty Grace who’s stories often go untold.