Shey Chemson is the president of Himalayan Institute Cameroon. Chemson was introduced to the Himalayan Institute during Pandit Tigunait’s first trip to Cameroon in 2006, and, since then, he’s worked hard to bring the Institute’s vision of rural empowerment to his community. He has a background in youth counseling, has worked in the financial sector, and founded his own financial institution. This combination of social awareness and business experience makes Chemson an excellent leader for HIC—an organization that seeks to empower people through self-sufficiency and a series of microenterprise projects.

I asked Chemson to tell me about his family. He writes, “I am the second child in a family of two boys. I’m married and a father of five. While visiting Honesdale last fall, I received the good news of the birth of my first grandchild, a boy. It’s a very happy time for my family!

“I think of HIC as being a lot like a family. It is a rural development effort in which each program complements the other—members of a family all working towards the same goal, and that goal is ending poverty.”