Celebrated UK-based Cameroonian philanthropist, Christy Newuh, popularly called Mama Atalaku, has announced she will be dolling out a whopping sum of $3,300 (approximately FCFA 2,027,680) to help vulnerable children in Cameroon access education.
She made the revelation during the first edition of Mimi Mefo Info’s flagship program, “Cameroon In 30 Minutes,” aired on Sunday, September 17.
Mrs. Epiewane, who is also a relationship therapist and an entrepreneur, told MMI that the giveaway was possible thanks to donations from goodwill Cameroonians living abroad, who chose to reach out to the vulnerable through her.
“We know where we are coming from, we know how bad it is. We know things that are happening,” she said during the program hosted by MMI’s CEO, Mimi Mefo Takambou.
“I just want everybody to know that I’m not doing it by myself. We have donors. So many of them use my platform to give. I have so many prominent people in society who are not from Cameroon. They don’t want to come out there, so they use me all the time to do the giving, and it’s because they have been seeing what I’ve been using my own money to do,” she added.
Thousands In Need
After launching the giveaway bid, Mama Atalaku said she had received close to 4,000 messages from Cameroonians asking for help. She now has the difficult task of selecting who benefits from the gesture and who doesn’t.
Mama Atalaku is also an entertainer. She features among Cameroon’s top event animators and presenters in the diaspora.
Mama Atalaku says she randomly picks potential beneficiaries from the applicants before proceeding to find out the gravity of their needs.
“I just choose randomly, and when the financial target has been met, I pause. And if anything comes in again, I go back and I start picking,” she said.
“At times I go back and do live videos. They follow the show, and I ask them some questions because there are a lot of lies being told, I try my best to bring in clarifications.”
She said thousands of people write to her all the time to seek help. Most of them are victims of the crisis in the English-speaking Regions, where years of armed conflict have driven thousands into desperation.
The United Nations said more than 370,000 people were internally displaced in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon as of April this year due to violence.
“About the same number of people were displaced to other regions of the country or to Nigeria,” the UN said in a report.
The organization also said humanitarian activities in Cameroon are highly underfunded.
“Only 19.2 percent of the required funds for the humanitarian response in Cameroon were received halfway through 2023. Storage and Non-food items (NFI), Education, Water, sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) Sectors received less than 4% of the requirements for 2023,” the UN said.
People like Christy Newuh (Mama Atalaku) say they are striving to relieve people back home from suffering in their own way.
She said her humanitarian gestures are driven by consciousness of where she is coming from, and the desire to lighten the financial burden of many families back home.
“It gives me some happiness. When I give, I feel some relief—like my blessings are from giving. I’ve achieved a lot in a very short time; it’s because of giving,” she said.
Mama Atalaku has done several such giveaways to vulnerable people in the past, and many have continued reaching out to her for help, but the funds are limited.
Relationship Therapist
Aside from her humanitarian work, Mama Atalaku is also known for her relationship therapy services. She firmly advocates for young girls to gain financial autonomy before delving into relationships with men.
“You’ll be more respected when you have a financial mind of your own,” she said during “Cameroon In 30 Minutes”.
She advises young girls to value themselves and to focus on having something to do first before engaging in a relationship with a man. She considers it a show of low self-esteem when girls cry, commit suicide, or fight other girls over a man.
“When you’re financially independent, you can now look at the man from the point of view of love and not money. But when you look at the man from the point of view of money before love, you’ll now start beating people. You’re not beating people because of love; you’re beating people because you don’t want to lose your money bag,” she said, referring to a recent case of six girls who beat and disgraced another girl over a lover in Cameroon.
Who Is Mama Atalaku?
Just a few of her thousands of followers on Facebook actually know her real name is Wuljung Christy Newuh. Mama Atalaku, as she is popularly known, is a relationship coach, an entrepreneur, and a philanthropist who hails from the North West Region of Cameroon.
The mother of two, who is married to Mesumbe Epiewane, has been living in the United Kingdom since 2013.
The 31-year-old holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Anglia Ruskin University in the UK. Before relocating to the UK, she studied Mass Communication at the National Polytechnic Bambui, in the North West Region.
She did her Nursery and Primary education at the Presbyterian Nursery and Primary School and Government School Up Station, Bamenda.
She enrolled at Government Bilingual High School Bamendakwe where she studied from Form 1-4, before enrolling at the prestigious Progressive Compressive High School Bamenda where she had GCE Ordinary Levels.
Her secondary education ended at Apostolic High School Bamenda, where she attended Lower and Upper Sixth.
Here is her email, in case you want to get in touch!
mamanewuh@gmail.com
