On a warm morning, as the sun settles over the compound, a group of small children gathers around a chicken coop. Their voices rise and fall in excitement. Small, curious hands reach forward. One child lifts an egg. It’s still warm.
Another stands at the edge of the vegetable garden, staring at the long rows of green stretching for what appear to be miles.
Later, these same children will walk back carrying handfuls of spinach. They will place it into waiting hands in the kitchen, where it will be cooked and served back to them at lunchtime.
This is not a field trip. This is the FAKANAM Green School of Excellence.
FAKANAM stands for the names of its founder, Fayez Tembon, and her three children: Kah, Nah, and Mufu. In every way, the school reflects what Fayez has learned in her life and what she intends to pass on.
Indeed, for Fayez, legacy is not something to leave to chance. “We are growing older,” she says, “and we need to set the tone for what we want to leave for the younger generation.”
This idea is central to what she is creating at FAKANAM.
Children don’t just memorise facts about the environment. They learn about it through their senses and daily routines.
For example, a lesson about colour goes beyond just naming it.
“There are green plants out there,” Fayez explains. “The children go out and see them. What do these green plants contain? Chlorophyll. What does chlorophyll do? It traps light to make the food that we eat, so we must look after these plants.”
The approach is simple but not simplistic.
Children learn that green represents life. With this understanding, they see the environment not as something to use and discard, but as something to care for, protect and live in harmony with.
In many ways, Fayez is bringing back the very thing she also experienced as a child.
***
Before lessons on environmental responsibility became common, Fayez learned about the environment by spending time outdoors. She loved climbing trees, mango, guava, or any tree with fruit.
The other children would stand in a circle below, waiting for her.
“And because I was small and agile,” Fayez says, “I would go and get the fruits for them.”
She didn’t think of herself as a tomboy. Instead, she believed there were no limits to what she could do. She often told herself, “If a boy can go there, I will also do it.”
She maintained this mindset as she went through school.
And she went through school quickly.
In Cameroon at that time, primary school lasted seven years, but she finished in six. Her father saw her ability and encouraged her to sit for the secondary school entrance exams early.
She passed easily.
From then on, Fayez was usually one of the youngest in her class.
She gravitated toward the sciences. In some classes, there were very few girls. But she did not see that as a reason to hold back.
She decided to study natural sciences at university, but for the first time, Fayez faced a challenge she couldn’t easily overcome.
“Imagine coming from an English-speaking background, then getting into a university where you are being taught in French, and by Anglophone teachers,” she says. “I couldn’t manage.”
She tried to push through. But after two years, she realised that this was a losing battle.
So she left.
Right after, she took entrance exams for a teacher training college and started over. Three years later, she graduated with a teaching diploma and started teaching biology at a high school.
During this time, she met the man who would become her husband. He was also from Cameroon but lived in South Africa and wanted to build a life with her. However, Fayez wanted to gain experience and be independent first. It took a year before she joined him.
***
In South Africa, Fayez’s husband encouraged her to try nursing. She applied to the University of Pretoria and went through the interviews. Only two international students were selected each year.
She learned she had done very well, but since she was third on the list, she wasn’t accepted into the nursing program. Instead, the university let her choose her own courses. She settled for General Psychology, Sociology, Social Work, and Health Psychology.
Her results in these subjects were so strong that the university called her the following year and offered her a spot in the nursing program on one condition: she would have to start in first year.
“I thought, no,” she recalls. “I have done five years already. Two years wasted in this French university, and then three years in a diploma, then I must start again? That was demoralising.”
She began to look for another path that would build on what she already had.
That search brought her back to environmental studies.
She connected with a professor at the University of Johannesburg. He encouraged her to apply, and when she did, she was accepted into a bridging program, an advanced certificate meant to help her move from a diploma to a degree.
It was a two-year course, but Fayez had no interest in taking more time than was absolutely necessary.
“I told the professor I want to do this in one year,” she says.
He told her it was not possible.
But Fayez insisted.
“I have wasted a lot of time at school. I want to… I will be able to do this.”
“Okay, let’s try it,” he said.
She did more than try.
By the end of that year, she graduated at the top of her class and was recognised by the Honours Society, which is given to the top 15% of students across South African universities. She also graduated cum laude.
She stayed at the University of Johannesburg, working with the same professor who had given her a chance. After earning her advanced certificate, she went on to an honours degree in Environmental Education and then a Master’s in Environmental Management.
“I was teaching life sciences… I tutored… and I was doing my master's,” she says. Then she adds, with a small laugh, “And I was making children.”
From there, she wanted to do a PhD.
She wanted to research waste, especially how to recycle diapers.
For years, she sent in proposals, revised them and waited. The answer was always the same: no supervisor was willing to take it on. The topic was too unfamiliar.
After six months of trying, she finally accepted the fact that no one could supervise her work.
It was a big disappointment. But Fayez adjusted.
She enrolled in a postgraduate diploma in Project Management, finished it in one year, and once again graduated cum laude.
Then, just as she was finishing, her former supervisor called.
There was a research project on bioethanol. Would she be interested in doing a PhD?
She accepted immediately.
Her research examined the entire life cycle of bioethanol, from sugarcane farming to production. What she found was more complicated than it first appeared.
Significant waste was generated at various stages of production, and it was often poorly managed. Her work questioned the idea that plant-based always means environmentally friendly. She called for deeper thinking, more accountability and better systems.
She finished her PhD, but gaining knowledge was never the final goal.
The real question was: How does this change the way we live?
***
That question reminded Fayez of something that had always been important to her: teaching. For her, it was a way to shape how people think, see the world, and decide how to live.
It is from that place that FAKANAM was established on a property bought and donated by her husband.
“FAKANAM is a regular school where we include environmental education,” she says. “I use the South African national curriculum along with another one I bought from the US. I combine them for different age groups.”
The school continues to grow at a careful and steady pace. But growth has never been without its challenges.
“When it comes to knowledge, I think I’m covered,” she says. “But getting the funding to do the work is very hard. And since we cannot afford to hire people for everything, my children step in.”
The oldest child, who works in IT and design, is building the school’s website.
The second child, a third-year medical student, and the youngest, still in high school, help with logistics and bring energy to the school’s space during events.
In those moments, what Fayez creates feels like a shared space where helping out and belonging go hand in hand.
“My children are free to choose their own career paths, but in the meantime, they are growing up being part of this work, and learning why it's important,” she says.
***
Many women know this reality, even if it is rarely said out loud: when you start to go beyond what is expected of you, your growth can seem threatening to others.
That truth has been no different for Fayez.
As she kept studying and pushing herself into new areas, her growth was not always welcomed. People questioned it, sometimes quietly and sometimes openly, but always making her feel uncomfortable. Her ambition was not seen as effort or dedication, but as something that disrupted the natural order of things.
“You want to challenge your husband,” she was told after she got her PhD. “You want to prove something.”
What, for her, was simply a desire to learn and to move forward was interpreted as defiance. Slowly, she found herself in a tough spot. Moving forward brought tension, but holding back meant losing a part of herself.
“If I keep quiet, they’d say I am not talking,” she recalls. “If I talked, they’d say I talk too much.”
There was no “right” way for Fayez to just be.
Most of the time, she chose to keep the peace. She listened without joining in and walked away rather than argue.
But holding back like that can settle deep inside you.
The confidence that had once come so naturally from the girl who climbed trees without hesitation, who believed she could go wherever she wanted, became more contained.
“I started to withdraw,” she says.
***
WE Africa came at exactly the right time. Fayez joined the program at a time when she was doubting herself.
“My coach has done a really good job taking me out of this shell,” she says, “I’m not there yet 100%. But there’s an improvement.”
This change has started to show in how she approaches her work.
For years, Fayez built, taught, developed and contributed, but never tried to stand out. Being visible was uncomfortable and seemed unnecessary.
But after going through the WE Africa program, she started to see visibility in a new way. It wasn’t about self-promotion, as she had previously thought. She realised that for her work to grow and reach beyond her own circle, it had to be seen.
“I can now send out a LinkedIn post,” she says with pride. “I’m scared… but I will do it.”
It’s in taking these steps that she started to recognise the value in her knowledge, experience and work. She’s also discovered the practical benefits of being visible.
“It is actually marketing,” she says. “Your work is showcasing what you do. And you never know who will buy into that.”
What’s emerging isn’t a new Fayez, but a fuller version of herself. And this version is taking her back to the girl who climbed trees.
Today, the trees are different. The risks aren’t physical anymore; they come from within: fear, doubt and uncertainty.
But her instinct remains the same.
To try. To reach. To go where no one expected her to go. And, in the process, create a path for others to follow.
***
This interview is part of a series profiling the stories of the 2025 WE Africa leadership programme fellows. African women in the environmental conservation sector who are showing up with a strong back, a soft front, and a wild heart.
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About Dr Fayez Tembon
Dr Fayez has developed a courageous voice in African environmental education, management and advocacy. Her journey reflects the power of visibility, authenticity and collective empowerment.
From obtaining several environmental education and environmental management qualifications and from her experience through teaching, lecturing and skills development as a practitioner, she founded FAKANAM Green School of Excellence and Consulting to teach, train and upskill African communities starting from pre-school ages to executive boardrooms. She has dedicated her life to transforming systems through indigenous knowledge, equity and radical imagination.
Once a quiet strategist, she now embraces bold leadership all thanks to the WE Africa leadership platform. She now reframes vulnerability as strength and uses her platform to amplify excluded voices in conservation.
Dr Fayez bridges creativity and systems change: designing contextually relevant, playful, culturally rooted curricula for children while shaping networks that reimagine sovereignty, sustainability and shared purpose. Her work embodies a deep belief that true leadership is not about standing alone, but about building spaces where others can rise.
In the consulting space, while searching and hoping for more collaborative or funding partners, she has and is currently a consultant for Tshwane University of Technology (TUT), Mbombela, in the development of Environmental Impact Assessment training material and the teaching of its students. She also chairs the curriculum restructuring committee of the Tourism Department of TUT Mbombela, and her aim is to drive Environmental education into their curriculum.
