PROFILE | Yaah Viban Gladys:

“My Mission is a Call to Service!”

By Akere-Maimo J. Ano-Ebie, MSc.

When the Paramount Fon of Nso, HRH Fon Sehm Mbinglo I, honoured Mrs Gladys Viban with the traditional title of “Yaah” in 2004 (meaning “Queen Mother”), he did not know he was tracing a path of a journey that is yet to be completed – mission to serve. The memorable citation the Fon gave her echoed in her mind: “You’re always doing a lot of good things for other people, but I don’t know what to give you. This is all I have. Take; this is yours”. Immediately, Yaah Viban Gladys looked at the kind gesture as a call for the service.

She even testified to this when she says: “Sometimes, I always say that God did not bring me this far to let me down. There is still a lot more in store that I have to offer to the people that I serve because I think my mission is a call to service. So, when you are in a mission where you want to serve the community and serve people, your job is really never done. You are just in there and plugging in and doing the best that you can”.

Yaah Viban radiating joy in her distinctive traditional attire

One can imagine that from childhood, Yaah Viban Gladys was already nursing the feeling of serving people and of being a good communicator, which is almost noticeable in the number of schools she attended and things she has done in her professional career. She did her primary school at Council School Buea, later went to St. Augustine’s College (#SAC) Nso, spent some time at College Bilingue d’Application at the time in Yaounde and did her high school as part of the 1975 batch at the Cameroon Protestant College (#CPC) Bali. Then, she left for the USA where she did her BA and MA in Foreign Languages and Literature at the Washington State University and later on continued to the University of Montreal in Canada where she did Translations.

After her studies, she returned home, probably with the purpose to serve her people. Upon arrival in Cameroon, she quickly picked up a job at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, where she worked for a while. By February 1999, she was recruited as Cultural Affairs Specialist by the US Embassy in Cameroon, a position she occupied until she retired from active service in March 2017. At the embassy, she handled a myriad of programmes, ranging from educational exchanges to cultural manifestations; coordinated the US Embassy HIV/AIDS Task Force (#EUSATF) ever since its creation in 2000 and was the 2005 Employee of the Year in the US Embassy in Cameroon.

Yaah Viban joined Minister Asheri Kilo & other Nso’o women leaders for a traditional ceremony at Nso Hall in Yaoundé

Given her tight schedule at work, at home and at church, she is able to manage all of her activities with ease. She explains that it simply calls for a lot of planning, strategizing, and setting your priorities right and knowing what you can and cannot do and being able to say no sometimes. Her success in life depends on a melange of things, but most importantly the fact of putting God first in all you do. It is also hard work, dedication and commitment.

“It is believing in seeing the good in other people and enhancing them because when you promote, help other people grow, it ultimately reflects back on you. And it enables you to achieve even greater things. So, I think I draw my strength from people like you,” she spoke out overtly.

Yaah Viban, accompanied by her lovely daughters, at the graduation ceremony of her first daughter

She is a mother of three lovely girls. She is very much cherished for her openness, her warm attitude towards people and hospitality. She is down-to-earth, God-fearing and charismatic. In spite of her short, round and plump features, she walks with a graceful carriage that sends heads jerking at her every move.

Her story is certainly a mixture of the comic and tragic. The memories of the loss of her husband are still very fresh in her mind, but as she puts it, it has in a way impacted positively on her. It has enabled her to draw from her inner strength and to do greater things. The loss has empowered her to appreciate people in a different way and she now gives her heart to everything she does. Her husband whose name is Victor Viban was a translator/interpreter just like her working at the Presidency of the Republic of Cameroon at the time.

Yaah Viban is an active member of the Presbyterian Church in Cameroon’s Christian Women Fellowship (CWF)

She advises the young ladies to never give up and to never quit. Her wildest dream is to one day be a wonderful musician, a Gospel singer. Her hobbies range from poetry, song writing, singing, reading of novels and thought-provoking articles. She is fond of listening to debates, programmes on sensitive issues, a lover of art and the plant world.  She loves interior décor and to fix things around. She has a special connection with young people reason why she led the junior choir in her church, Presbyterian Church of Cameroon (#PCC) Bastos.

 For her legacy, she leaves her admirers with two sayings to ponder on:

“If God brings you to it, He will certainly see you through it”.

“I can pass onto others that which was pass onto me”.

These wise words constitute the ingredients that spice up the life of Yaah Viban Gladys.

Training on transformational leadership for PCC pastors, led by Yaah Viban with support from TCLD

Now that she is retired, she insists that she is not tired in doing the kind of things she loves doing. She is into Public Speaking and Capacity Development as seen in the recent training she facilitated for PCC pastors in partnership with the Tayong Centre for Leadership Development (#TCLD) of the late leadership guru Peter Ngu Tayong and her lead role as MC in many high-level socio-cultural and professional events; she is board of Women in Alternative Action (#WAA), a local NGO involved in gender mainstreaming and women empowerment. She is also in other things that we all enumerate herein and has received meritorious awards of excellence for her lifelong achievements, one of which was awarded by the Fobang Institutes for Innovations in Science and Technology

Yaah Viban Gladys even testified to the statement of Fon Sehm Mbinglo I when she says: “Sometimes, I always say that God did not bring me this far to let me down. There is still a lot more in store that I have to offer to the people that I serve because I think my mission is a call to service. So, when you are in a mission where you want to serve the community and serve people, your job is really never done. You are just in there and plugging in and doing the best that you can”.

•    Ano-Ebie, MSc. in Tricia Oben’s Profiles International Magazine in 2007, then revisited and updated in 2017, and now enriched for TalentzAXIS Com4Dev
• Akere-Maimo J. Ano-Ebie, MSc. is a Strategic Knowledge Management & Communications Consultant @UNECA | 16+ Years in INGOs & UN Systems | Advocacy, Leadership, Policy Engagement & Communications for Development (C4D) Expert