Entrepreneurship in Africa: Part 4 in a Series
DOUALA, CAMEROON – Elvis Ndansi, CEO of a trading corporation and founder of his own health care foundation in Yaoundé, Cameroon’s capital, says he comes from humble beginnings.
“I was born in a remote village in Cameroon of a single parent,” he says. “I was raised partly by my grandmother, who was a farmer, and my grandfather, who was a hunter.”
He says he’s always had an entrepreneurial drive. He nursed this spirit while in elementary school by selling guavas from a tray around the village on the weekends. He used the profit from selling the fruit from his family’s orchards as his pocket allowance for the week.
After performing well in secondary school, Ndansi’s mother asked him what he would like for a present. He told her he wanted a camera. With his new camera in hand, he started doing photography.
Girls began to pay him to take photos of them dressed up in their dormitories. He would photograph them, send the pictures for printing and then distribute them to the girls. Every week, he says he made about 4,000 francs CFA ($8.40 USD). He says he was soon considered one of the wealthiest students in his school.
In high school, Ndansi bought a second camera using the money that friends and loved ones gave him for doing well in his studies. This time, he says he recruited others to help him in photographing the students who wanted their pictures taken.
“And then I wasn’t the one doing the photography anymore,” he says.
Instead, his role was to take the film to a shop to print the photos and then collect the money for them.
Ndansi then studied health sciences at the University of Buea. His father offered him a computer during his first year. He says that rather than use the computer to play games, all he wanted to do was learn how to type quickly. After acquiring typing skills, he started earning money by typing his neighbors’ assignments and printing them elsewhere.
“From my activities there, I bought a printer so I could do my own printing and later bought a photocopy machine, too,” Ndansi says.
Ndansi got his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing, in addition to receiving training in bioethics and leadership. He says he incorporates all these skills into the management of his current business and foundation.
The government hired Ndansi after he received his degrees to work as a senior health clinician in Bakassi, a peninsula in western Cameroon, but he says he preferred to do things on his own. So he created his own foundation, Unite for Health, and later on also started his company, Cameroon Trading Corporation Ltd.
As an entrepreneur, he imports medical equipment from other countries. He has now expanded to the distribution of pharmaceutical, medical and other biomedical products, with the distribution license of a U.S.-based company to market its products in Cameroon.
With his health foundation, he aims to provide basic health care to the underprivileged. One major project of the foundation is the creation of micro clinics, which consist of a laboratory, a consultation unit, a pharmacy and a hospitalization section, where patients can receive basic health care and treatment for simple illnesses.
His foundation also carries out community outreach programs, such as free educational programs for students on reproductive health to help reduce abortion rates in university communities.
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