Samuel Mbo Sona was not a politician or a philanthropist. He was a father of seven daughters living in Kumba, in the Southwest Region of Cameroon, at a time when sending girls to school was far from the norm. 

He did it anyway. 

Not because he had resources to spare. Because he had a conviction that could not be argued away: that an educated person, man or woman, holds something no one can take from them. That a certificate, a skill, a trained mind, was the only inheritance worth passing on. His daughters remember his words clearly. They carried them through their own lives. And now his grandchildren are carrying them into the world. 

The School He Tried to Build

What most people did not know was that Samuel Mbo Sona's belief in education went beyond his own family. He had a larger vision. 

He approached the government with a plan to build a technical school in Kumba, a place where young people could develop practical, income-generating skills alongside academic foundations. He was turned away. The financial requirements set by the authorities were beyond what he could meet. He never stopped believing that one day, that school would be built. He just didn't live to see it happen. 

Palace Avenue: Where a Hotel Became a School

On Palace Avenue in Kumba, the Sona family owned a hotel. After Samuel passed, the family faced the question every family faces with inherited property: what do we do with this? 

The answer came from the same place his conviction always had. They converted the property into a school. Not a hotel renovation — a full transformation. A nursery and primary school, built from the ground up on 7,000 square meters of land, in a city that needed it. 

They named it the Metropolitan Bilingual Nursery and Primary School. And they handed it to someone who could bring it to life. 

Mrs. Kima Tessa Sona: The Woman Who Built It

Since 2012, Mrs. Kima Tessa Sona has been the Founder and Promoter of the Metropolitan Bilingual Nursery and Primary School. A registered pharmacist, holder of a B. Pharm and MSc in Pharmaceutics, and CEO of Pharmacie la Reference in Yaoundé. She brought professional discipline, institutional credibility, and deep personal commitment to building something that has outlasted every challenge thrown at it. 

The Anglophone Crisis, which began displacing families across Southwest Cameroon from 2016 onward, brought those challenges into sharp relief. Families arrived in Kumba with nothing. Children needed classrooms. Mrs. Sona made a decision that cost the school financially but reflected exactly who it was built to serve: she cut the fees in half. The school absorbed the gap. It has been absorbing it ever since.

Why SONACAM Foundation Exists

SONACAM Foundation, Inc. was established by Bryan Sona — Samuel's grandson — to do what the family on the ground in Kumba could not do alone: build a sustainable funding infrastructure behind an institution that has been running on sacrifice for over a decade. 

The Foundation is the US-based engine that connects donors, grantors, and corporate partners to the Metropolitan Bilingual School. Every dollar raised flows directly to the school. Funding scholarships for children who cannot afford fees, sustaining teacher salaries, equipping classrooms, and building toward the campus Samuel Mbo Sona always envisioned. 

We are not starting something new. We are finishing something that was started long before any of us.