Thomas Ayeh Jing holds a PhD in Education from the University of Regina in Canada. He was born in Ndop in the North West, one of the two English-speaking Regions currently involved in a conflict for self-determination with La République du Cameroun. His father was the village blacksmith and he spent most of his childhood in a rich traditional and rural setting. After attending Sacred Heart College Bamenda, a Roman Catholic Secondary School founded by a renowned Irish cleric called Fr Mulligan, he headed to the Cameroon College of Arts and Science in Kumba, a coastal town, to prepare for his Advanced Level GCE. He enrolled two years later at the University of Yaoundé where he studied history. After graduation, he was hired by the Ministry of National Education in Cameroon to teach history and French language. His stint as a teacher in the village of Nyasoso lasted for a year and half. He then travelled to Montreal in Canada where he studied translation at the Université de Montréal.

He returned to Cameroon in 1988 and served at the Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Industries as Senior Translator, Service Head for Documentation and Archives as well as Communications Officer. For more than six years, he was Senior Columnist for the Cameroon Post Newspapers and a regular contributor to Cameroon Life Magazine. Amid growing political tension, insecurity and the risks of incarceration, he moved to South Africa. He worked with the Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) as Advocate for Refugees and Asylum Seekers as well as Editor and Producer of Kwanza, the organization’s French-English bilingual newsletter. He also worked with the South African lawyers for Human Rights as Editing Contributor to Botshabelo, the organization’s newsletter.

He was resettled in Canada where he currently lives and works in Regina, the administrative capital of the beautiful prairie province of Saskatchewan. He has written for Catholic NewTime in Toronto, L’Eau Vive in Regina and the African Nation Magazine in Maryland. Many of his articles have been published in French and English in newspapers, newsletters and magazines across the world. Tale of an African Woman (www.africanbookscolletive.com ), his first novel, was published in 2007. The book focuses on women’s rights in pre-colonial and post-independence Africa. A staunch advocate for the respect of human rights and freedom and for multiparty democracy, he has just completed a novel that is currently being edited for publication in French (Testament d’un patriote exécuté) on the human rights situation in Africa. His other work currently under review for publication is In Pursuit of an African Dance: An Afrocentric Historical Study of Buum Oku Dance Yaounde, submitted to the University of Regina Publishing. It is material drawn mainly from his PhD dissertation which focuses on the use of African folkdances to build community and promote education in North American schools. The manuscript of another novel (Testament of an African Woman Refugee), which deals with the current refugee situation in Africa, has just been completed.

His other interests include black studies, martial arts (he has a blackbelt in taekwondo), and the promotion of African culture as a tool for social, economic and intellectual transformation. His project on Afrinaissance (see www.afrinaissancegame.com ) is an innovative and enlightening approach to tell the African story; and he is currently working feverishly on a project to use African folkdances to combat obesity as well as provide a decent alternative to children involved in street gangs, prostitution and drugs. His ideas on this count is summed up in his PhD dissertation titled An Afrocentric Cultural Study of Buum Oku Dance Yaounde and Perceptions of its Relevance to African (-Canadian) Students between the Ages of 18 and 25 in the City of Regina.