Girls & Boys Clubs - Youth Empowerment in Cameroon

Thank you for your support, thanks to your donation this August 2016 Reach Out Cameroon organized the Youth Engagement Program. We hope from this report you get an idea of everything that happened thanks to you.

The program can be divided in three core topics, health, future and citizenship.

Under health youths were brought together to learn and reflect on:

Sexual reproductive Health, the modes of transmission and the prevention of HIV/AIDS and STIs, reasons to say no to stigma and discrimination, the basics of their sexuality as well the risks of early sexual intercourse.

Also, the 40 female participants were also coached on menstruation and menstrual hygiene and were handed sanitary pads. This was done in collaboration with Girls Excel, another local NGO.

Under Future:

Participants developed their life goals and set the path towards achievements. They were inspired by the presence of Sarah Etonge, retired international athlete and 7 times winner of Mount Cameroon Race of Hope, who joined them one day on a special lesson, they talked about her humble background and how she would go about climbing the mountain faster than any other woman, and most men “You don’t think about the summit, you divide the race by bits and think about the next one, and the next one” and on her experience “To train, my sister used to spit on the ground and tell me to run to the market and come back, before the spit dries. This was in dry season”. We want to thank Sarah Etonge Foundation for their invaluable collaboration.

Children were also drilled on entrepreneurship, how to draw business ideas, estimate profits, identify problems and create business solutions. The best business plan got a prize. It was “Pepper Soup-Snails” the mixture of two traditional foods. “What I really liked about Desmond [The winner, an 11 year old boy] was how he listened to othersand changed his plan according to what other people were saying and the feedback they were getting. It was the class that decided it was the best idea, and probably it was from the way he presented it, he has a lot of potential pitching ideas!” Teacher

Also under this module creative thinking was explored both in business and generally, one of the business modules was on thinking differently and on coming up with “Crazy business ideas” but we also had lessons on writing small stories and theatre. Together with the younger group a story was developed, a beautiful story on a turtle being abused by the chief of the village (a lion), and how through ingenuity and collaboration with other animals the lion was defeated, each bit of the story was decided collectively, from the character to each of the challenges and solutions. After each one of them went on to write and present their own stories. The older group made together a drama which was acted in the closing ceremony, about gender based violence. Again, everything in the drama was done by the teens, we had direction team, actors, scenery team and everybody decided on the plot together. We were there just to facilitate, and talking about the drama made us talk also about Gender Based Violence, how to identify traits in a partner or how to deal with an abused friend.

Under Citizenship:

Select staff of Reach Out developed lessons on the topics we usually work for, stopping gender based violence, becoming an agent of change in our communities and conflict management. Under this module we also introduced sports, and not only did we have a memorable run with Sarah Etonge, 30 of the children went on to train and participate into a youth race organized by the Sarah Etonge Foundation in Buea Town, and our man Princewill took the first prize! We also had the third girl and the third boy among us.

The Youth Engagement Program this year was a success. It had greater impacts on the participants and the community as a whole than ever before. The number of participants who register stood at 98 as oppose to 68 for 2015, and because we listened to them, the lessons were tailored to their needs and interests, and were met with a high level of concentration.

Tabi George, Youth Engagement Program Coordinator

At the end we had a closing ceremony were several prizes were given and basic educational support was received by all participants.

So thank you for helping them, not only did you educate 98 youths to take better life decisions you made sure this year they are going to school with enough learning materials. You are amazing!