Children's dreams

The differences between the Netherlands and Cameroon are obviously very big. But, children are the same all over the world! I don’t know any child who is not happy with a balloon. And like in the Netherlands, children in Cameroon also have dreams about their future.

Last week I visited a school. In class 6 (around 12 years old) I asked the children what they want to be when they grow up.

Fabiola wants to be a teacher. She wants to give knowledge to the people. Noel wants to be a doctor: ‘I will help people from dying and sickness’. Faith has even bigger plans: ‘I want to be a pastor to preach to people that they are not going to church and to make people now thanking God who gives us much things. I will preach to them and they will sing and enjoy that the Lord is good’.

It is nice to see the dreams of these children. But, what makes me sad is to read these stories. The language is so terrible that sometimes you can only guess what the children are writing. It is also sad to realize that most of them will not be able to live their dreams.

Many of them have gone through a primary school where they hardly learnt how to read and write. Some of them will not be able to go to secondary, for many tertiary education is too far because their parents don’t have money to pay their school (or they don’t want to spend on it). And even if they are able to go to school, they are still not sure of a job after they graduated.

For many graduates, there is no job. Most people work in agriculture. During Youth Day, the President even told young people to go and farm. On the one hand, it is good to encourage young people to work in agriculture. On the other hand, isn’t it sad that so many young people struggle to go through university and can only grow corn afterwards?

I believe that creating opportunities for young people starts in primary education. What you see right now is that we have a vicious circle; in primary schools they say pupils don’t perform because the teachers are not capable. The teacher training colleges say they can’t help that as the students they get from secondary are not performing enough to study well. In secondary school they say they get pupils in school who can’t read or write and that is because of primary. We need to break that cycle somewhere, and breaking it in primary education seems logic to me.

I don’t have the illusion I will solve the problems of all young people in Cameroon. But if Faith really becomes a pastor or Noel becomes a doctor, I hope they look back at their time in primary school and think; thanks to Knowledge for Children we had access to books. And that they will buy books for their own children so they also get the opportunity to read!

Faith wants to be a pastor