Andy Davey

LEAPed to Cameroon, 2009

Read Andy Davey on the iLEAP blog

Bio

Andy is originally from Cleveland, Ohio, and graduated from the College of Wooster (Ohio) with a BA in Philosophy. While at Wooster he studied abroad in Scotland and Spain, and participated on two service learning trips to the Dominican Republic and Mexico. After graduating, he lived and worked at L'Arche in Seattle, an intentional community for people with developmental disabilities and those who chose to share life with them. This experience fostered a determined interest in community building, social justice work, and grassroots movements. To further explore these interests, Andy worked for YES! Magazine and was the Manager of Education Outreach for FIUTS, The Foundation for International Understanding Through Students. At YES! Andy's interests began to coalesce around agricultural and food systems, and their relation to both politics and ecology. After Taking the LEAP, Andy enrolled in a MA/PHD student in Geography at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

LEAP to Cameroon

Andy spent two months in the Southwest Province of Cameroon working with iLEAP International Faculty Nzene Sylvester, the founder and Executive Director of Partners For Productivity Foundation (PFPF). The farm is still the primary source of life in Cameroon and PFPF gives people the skills and education they need to have a viable career in sustainable agriculture. This improves both the lives of current farmers and those stuck in the grind of poverty. Andy worked alongside Nzene to learn first-hand how the work of PFPF is done and contributed to the establishment of PFPF’s new Training and Development (TRED) center. Andy also created a promotional video for PFPF’s new EcoTourism program.

I visited with cacao farmers, learned about their struggles to form cooperatives, navigate government bureaucracy, and engage the global marketplace, all while tasting freshly dried cacao for the first time. I pounded fenceposts in the ground for a small goat ranch that represented both hope for more diversified incomes, and frustration with disease and foreign aid. I learned about intercropping techniques (such as planting nitrogen fixing pole beans so they climb up corn stalks, benefiting both plants) that maximize the use of land, keep the soil healthy, and increase yields. But probably most importantly, I developed a friendship with iLEAP International Faculty member Nzene Sylvester, getting a taste of his home culture in Cameroon and witnessing his tireless, creative commitment to building a better, more just and sustainable future for his community. My friendship with Sylvester solidified a place in my mind and heart for Cameroon and the ongoing complexities of development, but also focused my work and passions for my own community, building a better, more just, and sustainable future for the American Midwest.

--A Post-Trip Reflection from Andy

For more information about Andy and his experiences in Cameroon, check out Andy’s travel blog.