Eventful September …

Despite the socio political tensions (we have some strikes, tensions and civil unrest in the anglophone regions of Cameroon) that started in our region since October last year, which increased and caused a climate of uncertainty this month; we worked with all our groups and had some fruitful and beautiful moments our groups of girls and women.

SPARK GRANT activities

After about 06 months of work with the groups on this grant, we did an evaluation of our various activities with all our groups. They now have regular meetings among themselves, at least once a week, to discuss their rights, to share the various issues and challenges affecting them in their communities. Almost all the groups produce and market powder soap and body lotion on a regular basis. We are strengthening their capacities on basic bookkeeping and accounting. We are very happy, with the various testimonies of the women/girls to see them Gaining access to economic empowerment through learning new skills will. They say that it is greatly helping them to achieve a social, economic and structural transformation leading to the reduction of poverty among them through authentic self-sustaining human development initiatives.

“Our group helped me to build my confidence and my leadership skills.”Evelyne, 35 years (She is the President of an African Youth Alliance Group in Aboh Village, North West Cameroon)

 

“The lectures and sharing of experiences on menstrual hygiene in the group brought a great change in my life. I now know how to manage my body and I am more conformable during my menstruation period.” Joan Moh, 22 years (member of an African Youth Alliance Group in Mbulom Village, North West Cameroon)

 

“The African Youth Alliance brought a great change in my life. I am now able to use soap regularly because my group is producing powder soap. The body lotion is very helpful in my family. I do not buy all these items from the market again and this considerably reduces my stress on expenditures.”  Yvonne Mbeh, 38 years (member of an African Youth Alliance Group in Baingo Village, North West Cameroon)

“The powder soap and body lotion we produce in our group are very helpful to my family, my neighbors and the whole village. These products are now available in my village all the time and very affordable for everyone.” Cham Fidoline, 24 years (member of an African Youth Alliance Group in Njinikijem Village, North West Cameroon)

 

An amazing unexpected development from this initiative is the creation of a football team by one group in Aboh Village. They decided to form a football team, earlier this year, to help promote women and girls rights in their community. The African Youth Alliance donated a dozen of football jerseys to their team. The bought their ball with the proceeds from the sales of powder soap in their group, amazing isn’t it!

They registered for the village football tournament and raised a lot of awareness on the challenges women and girls face in their village through the gatherings during football matches.

 

LUSH CHARITY POTS Activities

The groups were all busy establishing their various gardens and farms. They were all trained on how to establish a compost heap to produce organic manure; the four groups on this project have a compost heap in their garden.

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They learned how to establish a garden nursery and how to transplant the cabbages seedlings from the nursery to the garden. They also learned how to apply manure on the garden beds and the modern techniques of sowing carrots. They finally completed with the tilling of soil and how to plant beans, Irish potatoes, and maize and soya beans in the farms.