WVED Cameroon’s Projects and activities falls in line with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2, 3, 4,5,10, 13 and 17. 
HerStory Campaign Program Activities; December 2017 – February 2018:

WVED Cameroon is implementing this program in Cameroon. The HerStory program empowers vulnerable girls (girls who face problems in reading, writing, listening and speaking and they are at high risk of dropping out of school) within the ages 10 to 16 years old by building their life skills (confidence and self esteem) through creative expressions, dynamic mentoring and transformational literacy. The goal of the HerStory is to inspire action that will move the world towards greater justice, health and global wellbeing for all. The program is carried out through LitClubs which are safe structured settings where girls can freely express themselves, read, write and raise their voices telling their stories of strength and learning from one another’s experience.  We presently have 11 LitClubs in Bamenda, the North West Region of Cameroon, with 200 girls enrolled in the program and 35 boys who are standing up to support the initiative of these girls. We have 10 mentors enrolled in the program.
 I (Helvecia Takwe) play the role of a senior mentor within this program. I provide weekly mentoring to the mentors enrolled in the program in line with the program’s curriculum. The HerStory Initiative program is in line with sustainable development goals 4, 5 and 10 which as a whole target the root causes of education, gender or failure to respect the rights of girls. Weekly LitClub sessions runs from Wednesday to Saturday and these sessions are organized for girls based on seven strengths or fundamental ideas that we believe guide girls understanding of themselves and the world. The seven strengthen Belonging, Curiosity, Friendship, Kindness, Confidence, Courage and Hope helps to build the girls’ growing sense in their identity with focus on reading, writing, listening, expressing and becoming. 

During weekly LitClub sessions mentors read aloud to the girls to share a love of reading. Girls are introduced by mentors to a range of theories of change that link creative engagement with strategic thinking around the seven strengths. The girls think critically about artistic and cultural interventions, design, assess, enact, document and facilitate creative activities that contribute to more just and less violent communities. 

World Read Aloud Day (WRAD) - February 4th 2018:
On World Read Aloud Days (WRAD) celebrated on February 4th the girls celebrate the power of words and create a community of readers taking action to show the world that the right to literacy belongs to all people. On the 4th of February 2018, 200 LitKids celebrated the world read aloud day with 40 orphans of the garden of education and Healing Bamenda I Sub Division.  These LitKids started by participating in the worship service of the orphanage which is one of the activities of the orphanage, then they shared the love of reading with orphans who don’t have the opportunity to continue their education and together they raised their voices with the rest of the world children to say that the right to read and write belongs to all people. The LitKids share their learning materials with the orphans and presented them with books for their library.  It should be noted here that in 2016 the LitClub members carried out a community building activities at this same orphanage where they spent one day volunteer in the helping them in their activities. In the cause of this they made friends and learn about the challenges which they faced. LitClub members have been working hard to solve the major challenge of education faced by the children of this orphanage as a result they LitKids gave birth to the Empower Her for a Better Economy project which has sponsor two orphans (girls) from the Garden of Education and Healing (Orphanage) for the academic year 2017/2018.

LitKids were happy to share their launch with the orphans

Every international day of the girl child celebrated in October Women and girls in the HerStory community share their stories and learn from one another’s experiences. Together we raise our voices for all the world’s girls so that they can build fierce fearless futures lit from within.
December 2017 – February 2018
During long holidays a literacy based pragmatic program is carried out by combining a traditional camp experience with effective literacy. Life skills training empowerment LitClub workshops, and fun filled activities building the resilience the girls need to carry through the coming year. 

Fulfilled activities during LitCamp to build the resilient the kids need to carry through the coming year

December 2017- February 2018
We mainstreaming sexual and reproductive health education in our programs to stop menstruation stigma, provide for sanitary pads and reduce the rate of girls dropping out of school within their menstruation period. 

December 2017, January 2018 and February 2018 weekly activities
Entrepreneurial skills development training is also incorporated in our work to enhance creativity and innovation. Where the LitKids designed a project “Empower Her for a Better Economy”. This project aimed at building life skills and entrepreneurial skills in girls (10-16 years) to enable so as to fund the education of less privileged girls. So far this group of 200 girls has been able to raise funds with articles they have produced within this project to sponsor 2 girls (12 years old and 13 years old) in secondary school. They have paid the schools fees, provide for basic school needs such as books (text and exercise books), and school uniforms. Their dream is to sponsors many more girls who are at risk of dropping out of school or who do not have the opportunity of going to school.

Weekly activity December 2017 to February 2018
We also have the HerStory Library at WVED office where mentors and LitClub members sign out books for guided reading and studies.

​The HerStory Program is funded by LitWorld and Global Girls Leading our World (Global GLOW) all in USA. The partnership coordinator for the HerStory Cameroon is Mboringong Fideline.

Sustainability Club for Peace:  16 February 2018
Government Technical High School (GTHS) Buea created a sustainability Club for peace in September 2017, with Emmanuel Tebit a staff of the school being the coordinator of the program. 

The club has climate action (SDG 13), SDG 2 and SDG 17 as one of its major objective. This club has got well established executive members who are all students. 

Within the assistance of the school principal Mr. Epey Ronard Ebi the Sustainability Club has been able to established a pineapple farm with 11,000 pineapples planted and 200 plantains.

The students are being taught the effects of climate change and how to mitigate climate change. This is done through shared knowledge as they face some challenges in getting experts who can give the effective and practical education. The club members organize themselves in taking care of the weeds in the farm as part of their activities. 

11,000 pineapples on the farm of Peace and Sustainability Club G.T.H.S Molyko Bue

200 plantains on the farm of Peace and Sustainability Club G.T.H.S Molyko Buea

Knowing the value of pineapple and fruits in general in the lives of humans, students intend to expand their farms, and cultivate all season round so that pineapple will be readily available all season and at a cheaper cost. Irrigating the pineapple farm is still a major challenge for the students this dry season as they lack the resources to do irrigation.
Creating Opportunities for Farm and nonfarm businesses in West and Central Africa (CORY):
This project aims at building entrepreneurial capacities for young boys and women between the ages of 18 to 35 years in farm and nonfarm businesses in West and Central Africa. Within the project I provided entrepreneurial training and mentoring as one of the master trainer for 40 trainers 10 from each of the following countries Nigeria, Benin, The Gambia and Cameroon. 600 young boys and women received entrepreneurial skills training in the 4 countries. The project ran from 2014 to 2016 and had a consortium of partners IFAD, CEED Canada, Venture for All an associate of CBS, GYIN and SUSTERRA USA. The pictures below are for 2015 which explains my role in the project.

The Venture of CORY REVCEL facilitator Benin

CORY Facilitator’s training The Gambia

CORY Facilitator’s training Benin​

CORY Facilitator’s training Nigeria

December 2018:  I (Helvecia Takwe) am presently continuing with mentoring within the project for the 76 youths who were trained in the North West Region of which 35 have got their own ventures/businesses. This is to ensure that youths run sustainable businesses. 

Mentoring on the carrot farm of Puo Carine  

      Mentoring on vegetable farm of Samuel Forgwe

A major challenge is the youths don’t have the resources to expand their businesses since they don’t have collateral security to deposit in banks or microfinance for loans so as a result they are still running small scale businesses.

9th March 2018:
12 representative of 40 CORY trainees come together to formalize their discussions on form the CORY North West Cooperative with the supervision of  WVED Cameroon and Helvecia being one of the supervisors. After some deliberations and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of different businesses, the assembly decided to start with two projects:

• Supply of day old chicks
• Production of feed 

The Cameroon Academic Honor Roll Program:
Considering the fact that academic recognition is at a low key in Cameroon, I ( Helvecia Takwe) developed The “Cameroon Academic Honour Roll Program (CAHRP)” as an innovation that will help rekindle hard work and research. CAHRP has being running since 2012 till present in two Divisions (Mezam and Ngoketunjia) in the North West Region of Cameroon and has give over 1,000 awards to meritorious students, ex-students, teachers and exemplary community leaders . I believe in the long term through this program to put in place a solid structure that will reward and encourage excellence, especially innovative ideas, and in the immediate, give our young people a little reason to work harder, produce the best in them and be contributing members in their communities.
A critical component of CAHRP is the promotion of developmental priorities that addresses self -reliant skills, the promotion of good leadership skills and career orientation among youths between the ages of 12 to 20 years old. This will make our youth more assertive and better equipped to take control of their future by making reasonable decisions.
The program gives awards in the form of trophies, medals, shield and certificates of recognition.
N/B: This event was in 2016. It still remains one of our major pillar but was not carried out in 2017 because schools are not going on effectively since October 2016 due to the socio political crisis in Southern Cameroon.

Nature of Honor Day Awards
CAHRP is an annual event which is done by fixing date day called Honor Day for the awards. There is an entire booklet that guides the organization of this day, criteria for awards and how Honor Day committee members are chosen. I can provide this program booklet on request.

This program is funded by members of WVED Cameroon and any interested person or organization around the world.

Sign Language for All (SiLA)/ #LetsSign; February 2018 : Cameroon encourages inclusive education but in the practical sense education in Cameroon is not really inclusive. Some schools are term inclusive schools where you find both special need students (deaf, dumb and blind) as well as non special need students. Practically in this schools the deaf and dumb have their own section separate from the non special need students and there is no meeting point between these two cases which implies there is still social exclusion. Again non special need students find it difficult to communicate with the deaf and dumb because they have no knowledge about the sign language. Cameroon uses the American Sign Language (ASL) which in most cases what is practice and taught is not the ASL but our “forefather’s” sign language.

​The sign language lessons are only taught in some teacher’s training centers specialized for primary schools teachers. Secondary school teachers who teach students who are deaf and dumb face a major challenge as they don’t understand the American Sign Language as a result a single primary school teacher who has study the sign language is brought in to sign all subjects for the students concern.

s a result neither the teacher nor students understands whether the interpreted is actually signing correctly or not. The teacher may only see that students did not understand after an evaluation (test or examination) is done. Another problem is deaf and dumb have no end of course national examination for the Anglophone system of education that they can write to have a national certificate. Most People who live with deaf and dumb people also have a major communication problem with them as in most cases also the care givers don’t understand the ASL.
I (Helvecia Takwe) designed the project Sign Language for All (SiLA)/ #LetsSign which started in January 2018, to help facilitate a social inclusive community where everybody can sign so as to understand each other.

​This will also help to reduce the stigma faced by families with deaf and dumb people and the deaf and dumb. If teachers and every community member can effectively sign their subjects then in the long run we are going to reach a point where social exclusion is completely wipe out in our communities. Denis Ndokuo; a deef is a volunteer ASL teacher and his baby translator Janice Akihmbom are volunteers who give the lessons to the children.

Denis teaching children ASL

Helvecia (middle) Denis Ndokuo (right) a volunteer ASL teacher; a deef and his baby translator Janice Akihmbom (left).

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This project is funded by WVED Cameroon where we bring in a volunteer sign teacher and an interpreter to teacher the ASL to 50 children between the age’s 10-16years. The project for now still has some major challenges as we need resources to get teachers and the involvement of the wider community. More ASL teachers and interpreter are needed, as well as compensate for the transport of the sign language teacher since he comes from a very far off city for the lessons only.

The dynamic team of change makers (WVED Staff, all are volunteers)