End HIV/AIDS in 28 Villages in NW Cameroon, Africa

Greetings To Our Donors And Supporters:

We are grateful and thankful for this opportunity to share with you the progress that our volunteers have been making in trying to remain on task and deliver effective services to our people in the English Speaking region of the Momo Division in Cameroon, Africa.  Despite the many challenges that we are dealing with in the NW Region including the Civil Unrest and weekly lock downs, poor communication network and travel by highway from one town to the next, we have been able to stay the course and follow our SNT Model (Success Networking and Training) SMART GOALS and ACTION STEPS to provide limited services at the most to the IDPs in our Five Zones.  We are looking forward to when we can venture out to the more than 28 Villages and carry our message and promotion about HIV/AIDS in Cameroon, Africa.

The Highlights for our volunteers during the period from March 10, 2022 through April 24, 2022 was the marketing and promotion of the  First annual Legacy Celebration for our founder  who passed in the US on March 10, 2021 and his remain was transferred back to his home base of Zang Tabi, Meta Cameroon where he was laid to rest at his Guest House.  The planning and marketing for this event gave our volunteers the opportunity to contact other organizations, disability groups, churches, local international leaders and individuals and spread the word about the humanitarian causes like AIDS/HIV that our founder stood for and implemented during his life when he traveled from Africa throughout many states in the USA including GA where he passed on March 10, 2021.  Each day throughout the Legacy Campaign background information was posted in each Zone's Media Forum and the Main Forum which provided participants world-wide the opportunity to view our Founder's  wisdom and work. 

Using the Internet Forums and face to face visit with pastors and churchs we were able to  communicate a positive reputation in all five zones which went a long way to enhance trust for our volunteers which has been damaged for any outside groups due to the Civil Unrest.  The people in the villages, communities are afraid and have low level trust for anyone or group coming from outside their village.

On Sunday April 24, 2022, which also coincided at (TAD) markets day as traditionallly called by the indigeneous people in Tewedikum Tribe one of the 280 tribes that make up Cameroon, meetings were held and  our Founder was recognized in special services dedicated to the life of our Founder and was broadcasted via Zoom internationally and included partication from home-base sites in all five zones and  world wide in Celebration as well as in the USA in the home where he lived while in the USA  of  our Founder's  First Annual Legacy event. 

Here we will share a summary on JRCCA's  SNT Health  Facility Lead Community Committee (FLCM)  meeting activities from Health Department during the Legacy Celebration of our Founder from March 10 to  April 24, 2022.   During the visit patients should be handed for dispensation in the community by the Facility Lead Community  (FLCM) team after all efforts made by the case manager to dispense the patient onsite fails (this applicable from 7 days upward). Exceptions could hold for patients dispensed during support groups.  Those dispensed in the direction where activities were planned, disabled and/or elderly persons who cannot come to the facility and during lock down days.  It was also agreed that  Defaulters and Lost to Follow-up ( LTFU) Clients should be handed to teams for search in the community when attempts to have them onsite have failed. Normally before patients are line, listed for dispensation by the community teams, the case manager must have made all efforts for the patient to pick up medication at facility and it failed or at least called and prepared the patient that another colleague will be bringing his medication along.  This makes the job easier for the community team member when they go to dispense in the community.

Patients line listed for Viral Load (VL) collection in the community be those who have
challenges coming for sample collection in the facility, VL collection could also be done in
support groups or during dispensation. The line listing of patients either for dispensation or viral
load should be done and handed to the team once to avoid reporting on particular patients several
times under patient's line listed, once line listed they can only report on them again if the
objective is met.

Some of the concerns raised by the regional team was that of communication where guidance is provided to the teams on the field but at the end the reports still showed a lot of inconsistencies.  Site leads and Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) team of the main project do not take time to look at the data reported to the region for their respective sites.

Recommendations:

The team was encouraged to review their daily and weekly reports and correct what has
been shared with the regional team.  Make an effort to offer Index Testing ( ICT) to cases identified, get information on CPs, work
with index tester to document in the ICT register.  Case Manager should follow up patients well before handing to community teams in case the patient does not come to the facility for services.   Collection systems onsite be reviewed and gaps closed.  Outreach register should be documented systematically and in a way that it can be understood by everyone  Team advised to report only on the patients given to them for tracking and sample collection in the community and not the entire list of patients.  Continue to seek ways of improving case identification.  Correct data on ICT.  Once patients have been line listed for tracking in the community the team should capture the number line listed just once and only follow up to report on those brought back in the
weeks that follow and not duplicate the number line listed across the weeks.

Based on this dissuasions and recommendations, we are planning for an orientation zoom call for
every first and last Fridays of the week from 11am to 12PM. Thhis schedule can be altered  depending on the understanding of the teams on the work they are supposed to do. Site leads and other team  members are also encouraged to create time and follow up for more understanding.  During the next 90 days we hope to improve participation in all five zones by all IDPs and work on improving our inadequate compliance system, poor management system and need for more financial support from our stake holders to improve on our work, health and safety system in all five zones.  Our sincere appreciation for your continuous support and donations.

JRCCA Health Committee.