Governance
Separate strategy from operations, lengthen mandates, professionalise the executive, and open three advisory bodies.
Strategic plan 2026 – 2031
From commitment to institution
An association that rests on one person’s strength dies with that person. Our modernisation plan has a single purpose: to make the founder’s work independent of those who carry it — and therefore durable.
Economic model
Move from a grant-dependent association to an integrated operator across the sector, from training to service delivery, with five profit centres.
Digital platform
Adaptive training that works offline, and preventive home monitoring, both aligned with the WHO ICOPE framework.
Reform 1
Governance that separates deciding from doing
An audit of the founding documents identified seven structural weaknesses. The chief one: the 2005 constitution gave the executive committee both strategic direction and day-to-day management, with no salaried executive post. The reform separates the two.
Decision-making bodies
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General assembly — the sovereign body, its powers unchanged, with two added responsibilities: approving the five-year strategy and ratifying the founding contract of the economic interest grouping.
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Executive committee — the strategic body, expanded from seven to nine posts, adding a partnerships officer and a digital transformation officer. Three-year renewable mandate (twice), quarterly meetings as a minimum, videoconferencing permitted.
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Executive management — the operational body created by the reform: a salaried executive director appointed by and accountable to the committee, supported by a head of training, a head of operations and a data protection officer.
Advisory bodies
Three bodies created so that decisions are informed both by those who know and by those who live with the care provided.
- Scientific and educational committee
- Five to seven experts in gerontology, paediatric nursing, vocational training and technology. Validates programmes and steers applied research.
- Service users and carers committee
- Five representatives of beneficiaries and their families. Feedback, mediation, six-monthly review of respectful care.
- Diaspora advisory council
- Three to five members of the Cameroonian diaspora. Resource mobilisation, international partnerships, skills transfer.
An economic interest grouping constituted under OHADA law carries the commercial activities. Its administrator is the president of the executive committee and its oversight rests with the association’s statutory auditor: strategic alignment is structural, not declaratory.
Reform 2
A model that funds its own solidarity
Until now the association trained care workers without capturing any value from the sector it was feeding. The new model places it across the whole chain: it trains, it places, it supports — and it reinvests.
Five profit centres
| Activity | Carried by | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Certified care worker training | Association | 38 |
| Placement and worker support | Grouping | 35 |
| Home care services | Association | 42 |
| Group purchasing and distribution | Grouping | 18 |
| Consultancy across the CEMAC region | Grouping | 9 |
| Consolidated total | 142 |
Revenue in millions of FCFA. Association projections, strategic plan 2026–2031, § 5.1.
Cross-subsidy, plainly explained
Four beneficiary segments share the same service. The best-off families — notably diaspora families arranging care at a distance for a parent who stayed behind — pay a premium rate. That rate funds access for households of modest means and free provision for those without resources.
This is not optional generosity: it is the very mechanism that lets us hold to the principle of universal access written into our charter.
| Segment | Monthly rate (FCFA) | Target share |
|---|---|---|
| Premium — diaspora families | 100,000 – 200,000 | 10 % |
| Standard — urban professionals | 30,000 – 60,000 | 25 % |
| Subsidised — modest incomes | 5,000 – 20,000 | 35 % |
| Solidarity — people without resources | No cost to the family | 30 % |
Source: 3A strategic plan 2026–2031, § 5.4.
Why the mechanism is indispensable
The French data show it beyond doubt: where nothing makes demand solvent, using a home-help service becomes a class marker. It rises from 2.9 % among the poorest households to 40.9 % among the wealthiest — a ratio of one to fourteen.
Reform 3
Useful technology, designed for our constraints
Technology is only of interest here if it works with an unstable network, power cuts and an entry-level phone. That is the specification we set ourselves.
Two uses, and no more
- Training — a mobile platform that works offline, with spaced repetition of what has been learned, simulated clinical situations and individual skills tracking. It extends the classroom; it does not replace it.
- Prevention — home monitoring focused on three major risks of old age: falls, undernutrition and cognitive decline. Alerts go to the care worker and the family; they never substitute for human judgement.
Aligned with the WHO ICOPE framework
Monitoring maps the domains of intrinsic capacity defined by the World Health Organization’s Integrated Care for Older People programme — locomotion, cognition, vitality, psychological state, sensory function. Those observations feed directly into each beneficiary’s personalised care plan.
Data protection. Health data is classified as sensitive under Cameroonian Law no. 2024/017. Our compliance timetable provides for a data protection officer, a register of processing activities, informed consent forms and responses to access requests within thirty days.
Targeted growth
The plan’s milestones, year by year.
| Indicator | Yr 1 | Yr 3 | Yr 5 |
|---|---|---|---|
| People supported | 60 | 300 | 700 |
| Care workers in post | 20 | 100 | 220 |
| Students per year | 25 | 60 | 60 |
| Reliance on grants | 58 % | 12 % | 0 % |
Source: 3A strategic plan 2026–2031, § 5.6.
The legal framework we work within
- Freedom of association
- Law no. 90/053 of 19 December 1990 (Cameroon)
- Commercial activities
- OHADA Uniform Act on commercial companies and economic interest groupings, articles 869 to 885
- Personal data
- Law no. 2024/017 — compliance deadline of 23 June 2026
- Rights of older persons
- African Union Protocol, ratified by Cameroon in September 2023, in force since 4 November 2024
- Vocational training
- MINEFOP accreditation and certification
Trajectory
Three phases, verifiable milestones
Phase 1 — July 2026 to June 2027
Foundation
Extraordinary general meeting for statutory reform, registration of the economic interest grouping, recruitment of the executive director and data protection officer, renewal of accreditation with the two specialisations, the first “Sara Murielle” cohort, pilot deployment of home monitoring.
Milestone: 60 people supported, 20 care workers in post.
Phase 2 — July 2027 to June 2029
Integration and growth
Monitoring extended to one hundred homes, launch of the placement service, rollout of the continuing-education platform, mobile payment across all client segments, partnerships with mutual insurers and institutional employers, establishment of the scientific committee and the diaspora council.
Milestone: 300 clients, 100 care workers, break-even passed.
Phase 3 — July 2029 to June 2031
Scaling and replication
Opening of a branch in Douala and a rural site, consultancy for CEMAC-region countries, a formalised quality-assurance system, advocacy with public authorities for statutory recognition of the social care worker profession.
Milestone: 700 clients, 220 care workers, financial self-sufficiency, a model replicable across the sub-region.
Would you like to help shape this trajectory?
Institutional partnership, giving, volunteer expertise on the scientific committee, diaspora backing: we are looking for allies, not only supporters.