The founder and promoter of RECEWAPEC, Prince Bengha Ngochia Martin, developed interest in older persons issues while serving as a Navigator at Marine Merchant which led to his numerous visits to older persons and older persons homes in Germany and other European countries. The relationships he developed with the older persons in Europe enabled him to be collecting gifts from them, which he shared with the poor and needy elderly persons whenever he visited his home community in Belo, Northwest, Cameroon.

When Prince left the navigation profession and returned fully to Cameroon in 1995, he created the Regional Center for Human Welfare and Agro Development (RECEHWEDEV), through which he set out to engage the older persons themselves in self-promotion and livelihood sustainable activities, such as gardens for tomatoes, cabbage, carrots and a lot more. These items, including locally-produced palm oil, were also offered to the older persons in the community, who were too poor to fend for themselves.

When the African Coordinator for HelpAge International visited Cameroon in 2000, the center was identified and engaged as a Help Age affiliate. With the assistance of a staff sent from the HelpAge International office, the center moved its office from Belo and was re-established at the present site in Bambui, Northwest, Cameroon, where it was easier to communicate abroad. From a HelpAge International recommendation in 2001, the center was restructured and the name was changed to the Regional Center for the Welfare of Ageing Persons in Cameroon (RECEWAPEC) gaining full NGO status in accordance to the laws of 1990 applicable in Anglophone and Francophone Cameroon.