Freelance Journalist & Filmmaker Alenne Menget on Core Values & Success
Alenne Menget is a Cameroonian Journalist and Filmmaker.
Mr Menget is also founder of ATS Productions, an audio-visual company that specializes in documentaries and talk shows.
AN EXCLUSIVE DUNIA MAGAZINE Q & A
1- Tell us, what are some of your core life values?
What I do respect most in life is honesty. I can’t stand a lie. I also respect time a lot, maybe because of my past job as editor-in-chief for TV when news had to be on time. The major values I also respect are hard work, determination, drive and the ability to seek the opinion of others even from the least person in the society to make my work better.
I am a go getter, I don’t believe in so called big names. I come from a society that all seems impossible for people who don’t belong to a certain class, but I vowed to myself I will stay on and prove that ideas could break grounds. That is why I don’t live abroad like most of my folks.
Above all, I am a God fearing person. If not for God, I wouldn’t be who I am. I have been tempted by other gods in my career but I believe I stay on because I have never betrayed my God.
2- What habits do you cultivate that have led to high productivity and why?
Some of my success habits may only work for me and some people who have what I have in me and believe in themselves and who live in my kind of society. My major habit is “Believe”. I believe in myself. I believe in what I want to do. I believe that I can do better. My society discourages talents, looks down at [creative] talent as madness and misfits. I must confess that the only person who believed in me a bit was my late father John. So even from home no one believed in me, not to talk of my community. My very humble middle class parents preferred that I became a teacher like them. My society saw me as a mad man for not applying for jobs in companies or writing the ENAM exams. But I believed and still believe in what I do. I had to drive on.
Planning too is very important. I can tell the results of a project right from the blue print and how the blue print is being executed. I don’t work with people who are negative or who think something is impossible. I can’t stand working with any man who brings bad information about other people to me because I just think they have come to take information about me to the public. As I said above, time and honesty are very important.
This particular habit is my strength: the idea of working with people and not working for people. I end here for now.
3- What do you enjoy most about your work?
What I enjoy most about my works is doing what other people have never done before. Most journalists here keep the job just around the people who make policy and have the money – the ministers and directors. These people form less than five percent of our society. I work for the commoners, the less privileged, the handicapped, the wronged in our society. I get the people’s problems and show them to the government. I meet the blind and orphans who have success stories that inspire others. I go to risk zones to ask people why they live there, I sensitize the less privileged on the good of the society. I also try to break down the superiority complex of the rich people who have money and influence society but can’t mix with society because of a complex from above instead of from below, they are hailed daily but inside them, many are not happy. This is what makes me love my job.
4- What is the business climate like in Cameroon?
The general business climate for entrepreneurs is a very difficult question to ask. The government policy on this aspect is not as bad as people say out there. The problem is still us. Too many bottle necks out there. Many people twisting policy. People don’t read the laws and fall prey to fraudsters. I registered my company for close to a million Francs CFA but at the end realized it would have been less sixty thousand if I’d had the right information – 2 years of tax exoneration on certain taxes. I’m not sure Cameroon taxes businesses like the USA and European countries.
5- What are some perks that come with working in Cameroon as opposed to other countries you have visited? What are some challenges as well?
I am working in a virgin land as a freelance journalist and film maker where there is not much competition because our people are lazy and lack confidence and drive. They prefer to earn pay checks, but I prefer to pay people to do the work. Our stories are many and not documented yet. Cameroon is a country rich in all aspects – the Portuguese, Germans, English, French , Nigerians, etc have in one epoch or the other brought their cultures to merge with our close to three hundred cultures. Our migrations stories touch the whole of Africa. We have the savanna, forest and desert. We have our political history. Where else is as rich as here? Everything about the United States and Europe has already been seen— from their reports and films, it is obvious that they are running short of ideas. They now are fighting aliens. The challenge here is us. We hate ourselves. We pull instead of push. We fear and are jealous of success. We are mean with corruption.
6- What projects are you most proud of and what are you currently working on?
My most important projects are the humanitarian ones… The Cemetery, Living on Water, Land of the Dead, Land Reclamation, My Handicap, My Ability, there are more than one hundred more. I am currently working on 52 documentaries for our National TV company. Before this year ends, I wish to do some work too on families affected by the terrorist group Boko Haram in the Northern part of Cameroon. I am also working on my own Radio station project.
7 —in closing?
If I have any last words. It’s for my fans and followers – those who follow my films and documentaries. When I see some projects with more than five hundred thousand views from a society that less than 5% of the people use internet, I just want to do more and more. And to tell them you can do it if you are determined.
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