Limbe, Cameroon & Eket, Nigeria — It’s just before 3pm on a weekday and 17-year-old Paul Ngwa* is returning home from his job at a phone and watch repair workshop in Limbe, a coastal town in the southwest region of Cameroon. Tired and sweaty, he gets ready to head out to his second job as a laundry worker in a nearby village.
“There is a lot to finance,” says the teenager, who earns 3,000 to 7,500 Central African francs ($4.72-11.79) weekly from both jobs to help support his four-member family. Ngwa gives most of his income to Florence*, his 45-year-old single mother, who earns 4,500-6,000 CFA ($7-9) a week selling vegetables and fish by the roadside.
