Why I set up a charity farm

The Tymdau Foundation established a plantain farm that distributes tons of plantains to charitable houses, orphanage homes, and the underprivileged. The proceeds from the sale are also used to support the most vulnerable residents.  Weekly harvests of the approximately 50,000-capacity plantain stands on the farm provide revenue for the foundation. The founder and CEO of […]

The Tymdau Foundation established a plantain farm that distributes tons of plantains to charitable houses, orphanage homes, and the underprivileged.

The proceeds from the sale are also used to support the most vulnerable residents.

 Weekly harvests of the approximately 50,000-capacity plantain stands on the farm provide revenue for the foundation.

The founder and CEO of the foundation, Mr Felix PaulMary Ekol, gave an explanation of why he established the charity farm.

 “It’s a simple practice in life that if you help someone without knowing, God will send someone to help you without knowing; and when you help someone climb a mountain to that mountain top, you will be there too.

“ So, being an underprivileged child and a child from a broken home, lack of love, lack of support, and lack of all of those things I had desired them and not having them made me see how we can extend our hands now to those that were once like me. That is one of the reasons.

Mr Ekol’s desire to serve people is fuelled by the hardships he endured in life, such as sleeping in motor parks with his little belongings in his bag and taking a bath in filthy, stagnant water before heading to school.

The turning point came when he tried to assist a vulnerable person and was slapped and forced to leave, where he was serving as a houseboy. The brother of the person he was serving told him to start a foundation for helping people and not to use their food for such purposes.

 “That was when I left in frustration. I went back to the village and converted that farm into my charity outlet.  50,000 plantain stands where  I harvest them to give out for those doing dedication, those doing burial, those doing anniversaries, those doing priestly ordination, and even the burial of the mother of the man who once slapped him for giving out his brother’s food to the poor.

Through the Tymdau Foundation, he also distributes plantain suckers and cocoa seedlings to young people who are willing to set up farms to generate income.