Remote schools

‘My name is Nervis. I am in class 5 of GS Kimata. Our school has only one teacher, the head master. We are sitting six on a desk’.

‘I am the head master of GS Kimata, the lone government teacher of the school. The school is in somebody’s premises, under a hut of one classroom accommodating all classes. (…) Fowls and goats oftenly interrupt classes thereby causing ineffective teaching/learning process’.

Can you imagine a classroom in the Netherlands where teaching is disturbed because chicken or goats are entering the class? Or where you can’t be taught when it rains as the rain will just come in? Or where you have to share a bench with 5 other children? Or where there is no water, toilet or teacher?

The pupils of GS Kimata
in their school

All of this is happening in Government School Kimata, one of the schools I visited last week for the Remote Schools project Knowledge for Children wants to do with three partner organisations. The school is relatively well accessible, at least the car can reach and it is quite close to the main road. However, the school is in deep need.

They have one hut in which almost 250 children are taught. The lower classes face one side, the higher classes face the other side of the hut. But there is no wall or something to separate them, leading of course to a lot of distraction.

There are two teachers; the head teacher who is also responsible for all administration of the school and a lady who is a family member of the person who offered space on his compound to construct the hall. She is not trained as a teacher but should teach at least three classes at the same time.

The school has two very small blackboards (what doesn’t give them enough space to teach three classes), the benches are borrowed from a neighbouring school and of course there are no books or charts or other teaching materials.

The parents, the Fon (the local king) and the rest of the community are very committed, but they are also very poor. The community consists mainly of survivors of the Lake Nyos disaster in 1986. They are not allowed to go back to their ancestral villages. They make a living through farming, but all farming here is small scale and doesn’t enable them to make much money.

No matter how remote,
the flag should be on top!

As the school is a government school, there is no school fee. However, the Parents-Teachers Association (PTA) tries to collect money to pay the second teacher. As many parents have no means to contribute, the PTA is not able to do anything else in the school, like building a classroom. So that is why the children are in a hut.

As the attitude of parents, head teacher and the Fon is very positive, we hope to be able to really help this school. We plan to train the teachers, do income generating activities for the women to bring more money to the school, provide benches, books, materials, pay fees for very needy children and more. And in this special case, we will try to find a partner who can help them to construct a building.

We don’t want to do this only for GS Kimata. For us, this school might sound as a horrible exception, but there are many schools like this in that area. Some are not even accessible by motorbike. Therefore we hope that, with our partners Benekin, Rural Development Foundation and Afoni Children of Hope Foundation, we can do something for these remote schools to enable to pupils to get good education and be able to lead their communities out of poverty in the future! 

News

Everybody who has read Joris Luyendijk’s great book ‘Het zijn net mensen’ (translated into English as ‘Hello Everybody!’) will remember how Luyendijk describes how news is ‘produced’. Demonstrations with only a few people are filmed in a way that this few people look like a huge crowd, or people hiding new baby clothes under the ruins of a bombed house to show to the TV.

He also describes how ‘news’ in a dictatorial regime is very different from news in a European country. I am not sure how the media here in Cameroon is controlled. I think there is more freedom than in the countries in the Middle East where Luyendijk writes about. However, politicians here also have quite some control over the media.

When I lived in Nigeria, we often knew of Boko Haram attacks through BBC or Dutch news far before something was published in the Nigerian media.

Here in Cameroon, I am often also the first one to know about attacks of Boko Haram in Cameroon. However, the Cameroonian armed forces are also fighting back and having success. They kill terrorists and recently they freed a German hostage. If something like that happens, it is big news and we will see reports about it for days.

I think we see the influence of politics in media here. Of course, if the army kills Boko Haram terrorists, the government is proud and informs the media. The Dutch would do the same! And I can also imagine that the government is less ready to publish about attacks of Boko Haram.

In the Netherlands, journalists can travel to a place if something is happening, they can look around, interview people, see what happens. Here is it all more complicated. First, not every journalist has the means to travel all the way to the Far North. But also, as a journalist you depend on the politicians. If you publish a story they don’t like, they might not talk to you again.

That might be similar in Europe. But a big difference is that politicians here pay journalists to write about them. Even us as Knowledge for Children, if we have news, we have to pay journalists to cover it. In the Netherlands, I simply sent a press communique and most newspapers and radio stations would report based on that or call for an interview. Here you first pay.

That also means that if I have a problem with someone, I can pay a journalist to write very bad stories about him or her. People tell me that this is what really happens during elections. For normal Cameroonians, this is also bringing problems. Because, how do you know what is true and what is propaganda? Even for Boko Haram news, we often depend on foreign information. One of my good friends has a brother in the army fighting Boko Haram. Sometimes I call my friend with news and he checks with his brother and it turns out to be true. Sometimes the brother even has to check it with other soldiers so the Dutch news knows about it before the people risking their lives for it.  Sometimes my friend gets upset; ‘I have been watching the news on the Cameroonian national TV just before you called and they didn’t mention it! How come that Dutch media know before us?’

And regarding Boko Haram, my impression is that the Cameroonian government is really trying their best to stop them. The Cameroonian army seems to be more organised than the Nigerian one. (In Nigeria it also seems that many soldiers collaborate with Boko Haram).

But, the problems are there. Many people are internally displaced because of it. Many schools along the border are closed because the army needed the buildings, or even worse, because Boko Haram took it or attacks schools and kidnaps children. Nigerian refugees live in camps in Cameroon and can’t go back to their houses.

I hope Cameroon, together with other countries, will be able to keep Boko Haram out. Cameroon is a safe and stable country in this region. We are surrounded by so many countries with problems, Nigeria, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo… Let’s do it the African way and let’s pray that Cameroon will ‘live long’!

Religion(s)

Before I first travelled to Benin in 2006, I read a book that starts with a passage in which the taxi driver tells the author that ‘this is the place where the minister was blown up’. Knowing that Benin had had some revolutions in the 80s, she thought that there was a bomb explosion. But, no… The minister was a victim of voodoo; he was blown up as a balloon until he exploded.

In Benin, people told me that 60% of the population is Christian, 40% is Muslim and 80% believes in Voodoo. Or, most people combine their traditional religions with imported ones. I also heard that the reason why Christianity and Islam could get easy access to Benin was mainly because the people had so many Gods already, they could easily add one.

This is also shown by women who go to church every day, but wear beads around their stomach to protect their fertility against evil spirits, or people dripping drinks on the floor for their ancestors before or after saying prayers.

For Cameroon, I have not really found which percentage of the population is adhering traditional religions. According to Wikipedia it is around 6%. But I guess these are only the people who only follow their traditional religion while most people combine imported and traditional religions.

For example, His Royal Highness the Fon of Nso is the traditional ruler of Kumbo. He is also the chief religious authority in charge of the heritage of the ancestors. That means the jujus are related to the palace for example. But, the Fon is also a Muslim who went for Hadj (pilgrimage).

A belief I heard from various people is the power of thunder. Some people seem to be able to control the thunder. I know people who are high educated and very European or American in their beliefs who do belief in this. Some people told me stories like one day it was sunny and then all of a sudden thunder came. One classmate disappeared during the thunder and was found back in a field kilometres away. It is said that traditional religious leaders can send thunder to do this kind of things.

Last week I was in a Knowledge for Children school. Some time ago, books were stolen from this school and till now they didn’t find the thief or the books. The head teacher contacted the local Malam (an Islamic scholar, one of the religious leaders of the village). According to the Malam, the books are somewhere close to the school in a bag. They will come back he says. And if not, he will send the thunder to destroy them. I am not too sure if I should believe this. But I hope the books will be found and brought back to the school!

Feeding the hippos

Sometimes, development can be so easy! Our partner organisation RDF is a grass root organisation of Mbororo people, a nomadic tribe. They work mainly for their own community. I admire their passion and commitment, but also their projects.

For example, in one of their communities, there was no access to clean water. So they decided to install a tap where everyone can easily get water from. Once they installed it, they found out that the women of the (mostly traditional Muslim) community would hardly leave the house. They used to go to the river together to carry water and wash dresses. But now that there was water in the community, they didn’t have to go there anymore.

Instead of telling them; well you have clean water now you have no reason to complain, RDF saw a new problem here. The women were not able to meet each other that much anymore, they had to wash their dresses at home.

So, they installed a basin at the water tap where the women can wash their dresses. Sometimes they saw women who came to wash the same dress every day, to be able to meet the other women. But, at the water basin, there was no space to dry dresses. So as soon as the dresses were washed, they had to go home to dry them.

Again, RDF saw the problem and decided to solve it. They put a fence around the tap. If needed, they can tell the men of the village that they did it to keep the animals out (Mbororo people are keeping a lot of cattle). At the same time, the women started to use the fences as a place to dry their dresses. Now, they can spend a lot of time together, they have access to clean water, they don’t have to walk far anymore to reach the river, they don’t have to carry water from very far. But the social aspect of the river has just moved to the tap.

For me, this example shows how simple it can be. But it also shows how important it is to involve the local people. I heard a story from another partner organisation. They work with disabled people and someone in Europe decided to donate a wheelchair for one of their beneficiaries. Very nice of course and people here need wheelchairs.

Where it went wrong is that they sent an electrical wheelchair. Looking at the roads here, this is very difficult to use. And then, no potential beneficiary has access to electricity. And even if they would have, it might be too expensive for them to charge the wheelchair every day. So now they have a wheelchair which no-one can use while many people are in need of a wheelchair.

In Knowledge for Children we call this ‘feeding the hippos’ based on the great Ted Talk of Ernesto Sirolli (the first 5 minutes are great, the rest is of less interest to me). I believe that involving your beneficiaries, following up with them and looking at your projects and its side effects, is the best way. We keep trying!

Season Greetings!

New Year’s Eve 2011. I remember I celebrated that night with my cousin, her husband and some friends. At some point during the night, my cousin told us to write a (practical and possible) wish for 2012 on a paper and burn it in fire so the smoke would take the wish up. According to her, the wish would come true.

I remember my wish very well. I wrote that in 2012, I wanted to find myself a nice job somewhere in Africa. It almost came true, I got accepted to work with VSO in 2012, and although I left only in 2013, I think it still counts.

Now, it will soon be New Year’s Eve 2014. What should I wish for 2015?

I think 2015 will be an interesting year. I hope to continue the work we are doing here. Of course we will continue to donate textbooks to schools. But we also have a lot of new plans. Together with some partners we are trying to organise training for teachers in nursery schools and class one and two of primary school. If it all happens as planned, all over Cameroon over 2500 teachers will be trained and almost 65.000 pupils will benefit from that.

With Knowledge for Children we plan to start our so-called Leadership Program. The aim of this program is to make communities more pro-active, make parents understand why books are so important and get them to be actively involved in the education of their children.

Another program where I expect a lot of progress is the Income Generation Program. We will hopefully train women on some skills like soap making. We are looking at ways to use this also to increase the income of Knowledge for children.

Besides Knowledge for Children, I wish that in 2015 I will be able to keep working as a volunteer with my friends of the Rural Development Foundation. I wish that I could travel around the country a bit and see something more of Cameroon. I wish I will be able to share the beauty of this country with some friends from the Netherlands (Katja, Nima, Narges, Giuseppe, I’m waiting for you!)

I also wish for very materialistic things. I wish for the road to my house to be paved so I can safely walk to work in the rainy season, without fearing a car will hit me because the driver cannot control it anymore, and the dust which is hitting us now will be less. I wish for a constant supply of water. I wish for brown bread or just baguette to come to Kumbo. I wish for a reliable internet connection.

But most of all, I wish all of you a very happy, healthy and interesting new year. I thank everyone for the support I get from you, in whatever way.

I miss my family and friends in the Netherlands, in Benin and in Nigeria, but I am happy to be with my friends here in Cameroon. So maybe I am far, but in my heart I am still with all of you. Thank you for being with me, and I hope to meet you all in 2015!

Silence Kills! Talk to me about HIV and Aids

The first of December is World Aids Day. According to the Cameroonian statistics, about 3% of all Cameroonians live with HIV. UNAIDS is giving different numbers, according to them, 4,5% of all Cameroonians is HIV positive. (To compare, UNAIDS is giving the following numbers: Nigeria; 3,1%, Swaziland; 26,5% and the Netherlands; 0,2%)

Health Scouts of GPS Kiyan

In the North West Region, the hospitals try to test every pregnant woman during her fourth month of pregnancy. If a woman tests positive, they treat her to reduce the chances of the baby to be HIV positive.

Of all the pregnant women who do the test (what is the vast majority) 7,6% is testing positive. This makes me wonder how accurate the numbers of the Cameroonian government and UNAIDS are. Like in many African countries, the taboo on HIV and Aids is big. People don’t get tested. So I am wondering how many people live here who don’t know their status. In the end, these women don’t get infected by themselves…

Knowledge for Children, our partner Rural Development Foundation (RDF) and the two main hospitals in Kumbo came together to celebrate World Aids Day 2014. The hospitals were offering free voluntary counselling and testing. In this way, we hope at least some more people are aware of their status.

Two Health Clubs of Knowledge for Children schools were performing songs and sketches to sensitize people in the market. They sensitize about HIV and Aids, but also against stigmatization and taboo. One of the slogans they used was; ‘Silence kills! Talk to me about HIV and Aids’.

Health Scouts of GS Shisong

I am afraid they are right. Like in the Netherlands, people can receive treatment here for HIV. This doesn’t cure the disease, but allows you to live for long. But people are so scared, maybe especially because of the stigma, that they don’t get tested.

I will never forget the woman I met in Cotonou in 2006. She came to the hospital and told the doctor; ‘I have a problem. I am four months pregnant but my husband doesn’t know I am HIV positive. How do I get a healthy baby, without my husband finding out about my status?’ The taboo, the stigma, is preventing people from talking to their partners. They are scared to take the test, they don’t know their status and infect others.

The stigma is not easy to fight. But I think it is important that we try. Our Health Clubs are a way to make children talk about HIV and Aids, even before they become sexually active. Also for them and their teachers, it is not always easy to talk about HIV. But silence kills, let’s talk about it. Talk to your children, to your family and fight the stigma!

About drivers and teachers

In Kumbo, there are not many white people who drive. And, there are also very few women who drive. So, me driving a car is a strange phenomenon for many people here. So strange that people start shouting when they see me drive a car. If I pass a motorbike, the driver and his passenger(s) start pointing and shouting.

For me, driving in Cameroon is also quite an experience. Within Kumbo it is ok. The roads are not great, but most of them are doable. The road to the main city close by is very fine. Driving to Yaoundé is no problem as long as someone else drives in the main cities.

But, going to rural communities, that is quite an adventure! This week we trained teachers in two very rural communities. The first one was still ok, but reaching the second school was not so easy. The problem in the rainy season is that you don’t see how deep the potholes are as they are filled with water. So often you just hope you can really pass and will not get stuck in the mud.

Even more scary, very narrow paths, with very slippery clay, just enough space for your wheels and a pothole of a meter deep between your wheels. There is not much risk for heavy accidents in these roads, but I am scared to get stuck somewhere in the middle of nowhere! Fortunately, it all went well so far!

After the driving, the next adventure is to train the teachers. I knew not all teachers are very well trained. But still I am shocked. Teachers who think you write best with an a. Teachers who are really surprised when you tell them they should not beat a child with a book. Teachers who only ask questions to the entire class, being totally unaware of slow learners and individual differences. (If you want a child to answer ‘church’ you can ask Mary where she goes on Sunday morning, but Ibrahim will tell you he goes to the market!).

Like in Nigeria, the favourite teaching method is to have the entire class repeating the teacher; say after me; verbs! Again; verbs! Again; verbs! People don’t realise that in that way a child doesn’t learn what a verb is. I have seen that a lot in Nigeria. Classes full of children who can repeat the alphabet, but don’t ask them to come forward and point to p, they don’t know!

In the next few years, Knowledge for Children will focus more and more on training of teachers. Hopefully, at least some of them will get some ideas how to deal with their classes and teach effectively. And hopefully in that way, the children in the rural areas of Cameroon will get better education, will be able to read and write very well and will get many more opportunities in their lives!