From Our Scholars: Simeon Kongyuy

“From a very young age, I realized most parents avoided hospitals for one reason or the other, and turned to buy drugs from local street vendors without proper medical consultations, most often they got malaria drugs, without really considering if their child surfers from malaria or not. When I realized this, I thought of ways to help, so I conducted a short survey to find out why they made that choice. My survey result was clear, "Insufficient funds to pay for the numerous hospital costs/bills"! 

When I saw this result I quickly came up with the idea of writing a book, one that would serve as a consultation guide for parents or children, to help them differentiate between several diseases which may have slightly related symptoms. My first book "Health Companion" was published while I was 15 years old, in April 2020.

When I started spreading the word and distributing my book, I realised it wasn't reaching as many people as I expected. So I started my first campaign, to plead with parents on the dangers of roadside medicine. It was carried out in Misaje sub-division in the North-West region of Cameroon. Whilst in Limbe, where I currently live, I also run several campaigns to fight against STDs amongst youth (students) by speaking to them about its dangers!

These stories of kids losing their lives due to roadside (low-quality/expired) drugs, parents lacking awareness on diseases, and other similar situations pushed me to pursue sciences to become a medical doctor, so as to help these parents and kids as much as I can”