Build 100 Young Change Makers in Cameroon

 Dear Donor’s, the Youth Engagement Program has started thanks to you and other wonderful people like you. We thought we should give you a heads up on what is happening in the classrooms.

‘’Draw something that exists, and something that does not exist.’’ Last week there was a lot of drawing and painting. Materials were donated by a former volunteer of Reach Out, and there are so many! We kept most of them for the closing ceremony and will be given out to the participants as prizes and support packages.

The spirit throughout the program will be to mix knowledge-dense classes that push them to think and reason with more practical, playful ones. Before drawing we did a 2 hour lesson on philosophy, we called it Thinking Class.

The system was very simple, pick an interesting quote and sort out together what does it mean first, and then if we agree or not, first in an open discussion in class and later on with an essay. It was an opportunity also for us to get into the heads of young teenagers of underprivileged background. When faced with the statement ‘’Luck is preparation meeting opportunity’’ (SENECA) we had replies such as ‘’ I disagree, luck is the force that causes things, especially good things, to happen without our own efforts, abilities or preparation’’ to the statement ‘’Be kind, for everybody is fighting a hard battle’’ (PLATO) another replied ‘’I disagree, somebody can have one problems but others have many, millions of problems’’. Others, like Brita who wrote a beautiful piece, think there is much you can do with life, no matter the cards you are dealt. ‘’Good preparation is the key to be successful, not lucky.’’ ‘’Preparation is always advantageous and never harmful. Learning to understand good English is not only helpful for my English Lessons but also to other subjects and my every day interaction. ‘’ ‘’ If we believe luck is pre-destined we will never put efforts in our lives and luck will never come.’’’

We have also had lessons on HIV, Entrepreneurship, theatre, hygiene, stress management, physical education and Environmental Protection. We are laying a lot of emphasis on confidence-building, not only is part of our program, most children told us on the first day that they want to learn how to be more confident.

What is coming next? Next week is the I.T. week, and children are eager to start touching and playing with our laptops, after a first lesson on basic I.T. they will move on to use scratch with a partner organization (Njaka) and effective use of the internet. (Key messages: Facebook is not the internet! All the knowledge you need is out there, just learn how to find it.)

We will continue physical education (they need to train, there is a race closing the program!) and learn more about Human Rights, Gender-based Violence and Civic commitment, with the knowledge gathered, we will help them carry own their own Community Development Project to close the program. This end of August.

Have a great day and thank you so much for giving us the opportunity of working with these amazing youths.  Thanks to you, we have enough funds to finish the classes, but if we don’t get closer to our funding goal we won’t be able to provide educational support packages for the children to take at the end, and we won’t be able to organize the final race either! Moreover, if we have enough funds we will create a club at the end of the program and continue your impact throughout the school year! We need your help, please talk to somebody that you know about this project, you can be our best ambassador.

Thanks for everything you have done so far.

Links:

• Our website
• more updates on facebook!