By Sylvie Ebitoh | Volunteer - Wealth Creation Department
Last November Helen received a business grant to be empowered economically. Before, she wasn’t doing any business of her own but relied solely on her husband for everything. Helen now has her own business: she cooks pepper soup meat with plantain (a local dish) and sells from house to house.
She attests to the fact that she is now a bit more independent. She can buy some basic things for herself with or without the husband (soap, small household items), something which was impossible before.The family feeds better too: “There used to be days when I did not have anything to eat, now we always have something to not sleep hungry”. This is all thanks to your donations. She is looking forward to extending her business, selling of dresses from Nigeria to Mabeta Njanga, Limbe 3.
Through Helen, we also got to know more about Mabeta.
The community has two major economic activities which include fishing and farming. Most of the Nigerians are fisher men and most of the Cameroonians there are farmers. The rate of illiteracy is very high as most of the youths are not in school, some are in fishing and some are roaming about in the village. The high rate of illiteracy has led to high birth rate as most young teenagers are idle and don’t have basic sexual reproductive health knowledge. There is also high rate of prostitution, drug use and alcoholism.
The community has a lot of potentials which can be exploited to make the place developed. Neighboring communities find the place productive come to do trading there. There was also a program for young girls in which this girls where taught how to do hair dressing, tailoring and other art work using their hands.
There are also women groups in the community which also helps in community development. They include: Southwest Women who are into cassava farming and also Women of tomorrow association which are involved in social education of the girl child.
In the future, we hope our organization will extend activities to Mabeta,
Since most of the young girls in the community had undergone training on some economic activities our main project could consider expanding there. With this project a lot can be achieved. It’s going to also serve as a factor for the reduction of teenage pregnancy, early marriages and also reduce the rate of prostitution in the community.
Even though we could not get as much funds as we were expecting, your two donations served to move Helen from idleness to a functioning economic activity, and helped us identify a high-need area we did not master, your impact will be felt in herself and her 5 children, and hopefully with time, the whole community!
Thanks for your generous donation.
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