Save Your Future Association (pronounced "see fah") is a non-profit environmental organization founded in 2001 (registered in 2005) that seeks to promote environmental protection, education, and community building. The organization is led by Farmer Tantoh, a Cameroon native who has dedicated his life to environmental protection and community development. SYFA is located in Mbum land (population 90.000) in the North West Province of Cameroon. It is supported by a large international network, which includes the Tahoe-Baikal Institute, Mountain Forum, Henry DoubleDay Research Association (HDRA-UK), World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.

MISSION

SYFA works with African children, youths, and low-income farmers in rural communities to promote organic farming techniques and to protect the local environment.

OBJECTIVES OF SYFA

SYFA promotes environmental protection, education, and community building under the rubric of the United Nation’s Millennium Development goals. SYFA recognizes that environmental issues have social consequences and causes. Accordingly, SYFA proceeds in a systematic and a community-oriented approach which merges environmental activism with education and community building. SYFA organizes a community of locally-active youths to create an environmentally-sustainable future. In projects such as the Chua-Chua Botanical gardens (p. 9), SYFA converted a derelict plot of land into a community centre resulting in the creation of an area where the environment is protected and cherished.

Ultimately, SYFA hopes that its projects will help the United Nations achieve Millennium Development Goals 1, 2, and 7 which strive to eradicate extreme hunger and poverty, achieve universal primary education, and ensure environmental sustainability, respectively. SYFA hopes that these goals will foster a local community that values the environment.

Specifically, SYFA's goals include:

Environmental Protection

• To protect spring water catchments by planting agroforestry trees and educating the rural communities on watershed management issues

• To encourage organic lawn creation and indoor flower gardening with children and youths in the rural community

Education

• To inform the rural community about sustainable agricultural techniques, such as tropical organic farming, by offering field training to low-income farmers

• To promote formal education of rural children by helping them pay for school activities

Community Building

• To create active environmental clubs in primary schools, secondary schools, churches, prisons, and in the villages

• To work with local religious groups to promote environmental protection

• To generate an active volunteer-based initiative that promotes a service mentality