Joshua Chiamba was born in 1975 in Belo, Cameroon. He is the co-founder and coordinator of RUDEC-Rural Development Centre. At the age of six on the death of his father he was sent to live with his aunt, who supported him throughout his school days. Upon leaving school, His great could no longer afford to support him. He did not studied at university, instead he decided to become a proficiency beekeeper and social worker; researched what he needed to do and what organisations to connect with to be the best beekeeper he could be.
What position do you hold at RUDEC? What has been your career path so far?
The position I hold at RUDEC is co-founder and coordinator. My career path was not easy because I lost my father and could not have a person to send me to school. This made me to choose a path of practicing with other organization and learning skills that could help me out of Poverty, I studied beekeeping with a British organization called Bees Abroad and became a proficiency beekeeper and learn also social work skills from all projects that I work with them.
I did consultancy with Wildlife Conservation Society Cameroon. I have done courses on Project planning, management and evaluation so that I could better manage RUDEC. I am still looking for avenues to studies as I need more education to do better and better.
How have you changed/grown since working for your current company?
I started working for RUDEC since its creation in 2006 and sees changes in my life. I have manage this post since creation and my knowledge has grown so much that I cannot recount here. I have learn to know people especially international volunteers and community people.
My skills in personnel management has improve so much that it’s much easier now for me to handle people and their situations. My interest in working as a volunteer for my community has continued to grow because each day I see orphans and feel petty for them and that has made me more motivated to do work , let alone when people give me thanks for the work done to better their lives or their community.
What does the future hold for RUDEC - any exciting new programs to share?
RUDEC started without capital or resources set to run it but a belief that change would come. RUDEC started in my little room in 2006 and moved out to a central office now in town though on rents but a big move! We had always thought of expanding RUDEC to other countries in the world, which is not easy but progress is coming on.
We have successfully register RUDEC in Germany by a volunteer and it is helping us now to have PayPal donations and support, this process will have to continue. We always have exciting projects like teach abroad project to orphans and vulnerable children ongoing! We have a tourism project as an income source for RUDEC and many more would come up so that RUDEC would become a sustainable organization in the future. We hope to have a volunteer house for our volunteers build so that they pay cheap.
Describe a time when you felt especially proud to be part of the RUDEC team:
Being part of RUDEC team is inspiring because of the flexibility and focus. I always feel proud to be part of this team. We have always work as a team and this is what we do not see in some projects and being part of RUDEC it makes me proud to be with this team always. One of my most memorable time was when we initiated the orphan’s project in 2008. One of the team member asked me if we could start and orphan because she saw many in the community that needed help.
We did not have the resources and money to take on this project but as a team we had a meeting and we agree that we have to start it and work hard for it even without resources to give hope to the hopeless children. As a team, miracles happen that we enrolled first 25 children and begged things to give them but this volunteer when to her home country and raised 500 euros that help us pay fees and get school needed for these children.
