The Ignored Voices of Bafut: COTECC Students Share Their Dreams & Struggles

Welcome to COTECC — Where Potential Has No Ceiling and Resources Hit the Floor

On a loud, sun-drenched afternoon in Bafut, Cameroon, Joshua T. Berglan — The World's Mayor — walked into COTECC school with one mission: hand the microphone to the students and get out of the way.

No fancy studio. No professional crew. No satellite uplink. Just a phone, a crowd of eager young people, and a belief that the world needs to hear what they have to say.

COTECC is a technical and vocational school serving students from around age 13 through college level. On paper, it offers programs in auto mechanics, woodworking, construction, electrical work, fashion design, and academic subjects. In reality, it operates in the shadow of the Anglophone Crisis — a conflict that has closed schools, displaced families, and stripped communities of the very infrastructure needed to build a future.

And yet — these kids show up. Every single day, they show up.

They Had the Courage to Stand Up First

When Joshua first invited students to come forward and share their voices, silence fell. No one moved. Then one student — Neba — stepped up. And the moment he did, hands went up everywhere.

"That's why leaders are important," Joshua told the room. "Someone has the courage to be first — and what it does is inspire everyone else to do the same."

What followed was over an hour of some of the most powerful, clear-eyed, hope-filled testimony Joshua has ever broadcast. Student after student stepped in front of the camera to share dreams, identify needs, and deliver messages to the world with the kind of wisdom that takes most adults decades to find.

Here are just some of the voices that spoke up that day:

What They Need — And It Isn't Much

Over the course of more than an hour of interviews, a consistent picture emerged. These students are not asking for the impossible. They are not asking for a miracle. They are asking for what students in the wealthiest schools in the world take for granted.

Student after student named the exact same categories of need. Not luxury items. Not advanced technology. The tools to practice what they are already being taught in theory.

These are not wishlist items. These are the bare minimum tools required for students to practice what they are studying — and without them, they learn theory while staring at broken or absent equipment. They pass classes without ever completing a single practical. They graduate without the hands-on skills the world will require of them.

Operating in Faith When the Infrastructure Fails

What struck Joshua most — what struck every viewer who watched that broadcast — was not the list of needs. It was the spirit of the students delivering it.

Every single person who stepped up in front of that camera expressed gratitude first. Gratitude for still being alive. For parents who found a way to send them to school. For a community that stayed together through a crisis that broke others apart. For the opportunity — however imperfect — to learn.

And then, without bitterness, they named what was missing.

"Even if we don't have the materials to work on it, we still try our best," said Abom. "And even if we are still able, we'll try to withdraw the knowledge we have from it for the moment — and I really wish as the day goes by we should be able to have modern instruments."

This is not a community asking for handouts. This is a community operating in faith — doing everything they can with what they have, and asking the world to show up with the tools that let them do the rest themselves.

This Is Not Charity. This Is Equipping Them to Fish.