Our most recent initiative, Phase II which brought over 21.000 French language books to mostly rural schools and communities, has just been completed – thanks to the help and support of many friends like you!
Photos are now up on Facebook of the ceremony (generously hosted by the elites of Batie) so please take a look and share your comments!
Visit facebook.com
We’ve also made two short 5 minute videos where you can see clips from phase I and II. Both versions are slightly different so check them both out and let us know what you think!
youtube video en Francais:
youtube video in English:
Thanks again for all your love and encouragement, we couldn’t have done it without the support of people like you back home.
Cristina Kowarick
Peace Corps Volunteer 2010-2012
www.booksforcameroon.com
Bringing French & English books to our rural schools & communities
идея за подарък
Health care in Cameroon has made great strides, thanks in large measure to the dedicated efforts of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBCHS). Providing quality health care to all regardless of their religious beliefs, the CBCHS operates 6 hospitals at Banso, Mbingo, Mutengene, Douala, Mbem, and Banyo, , offering some of the best health care available in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition, the CBCHS operates over 70 clinics and treatment centers in six of the 10 regions of Cameroon, focusing on urgent care; pre- and post-natal services; HIV, Malaria & TB diagnosis and treatment; and a host of education and outreach programs. The CBCHS also operates the Chosen Children Program, which cares for 3,000+ orphans.
That’s where the Cameroon Health & Education Fund (CHEF) comes in. CHEF is a US non-profit organization, which channels tax-deductible gifts to improve health and education in Cameroon, mostly by supporting the CBCHS programs. As a totally volunteer organization, CHEF has no overhead or administrative costs, so 100% of every gift goes directly to Cameroon, except for credit card and wire fees. The funds are monitored and accounted for, so donors can be confident their support is serving its intended purpose.
For more information visit cameroonhealthandeducationfund.com.
Откъде да купя иконаAshoka is driving a new vision for the citizen sector— one based on individual innovators who inspire and lead everyone to be a ‘changemaker’ at some level. Ashoka’s core work is identifying and investing in leading social entrepreneurs with new ideas for social change as well as providing them with access to a global network of social entrepreneurs thereby creating an ever increasing synergy for local action and global change. After 30 years, our community of Fellows is now 3,000 strong in over 77 countries across 5 continents. Ashoka serves as a platform for collaboration and exchange, while also designing new ways for the citizen sector to become more productive, entrepreneurial, and globally integrated.
Since 1990, Ashoka Africa has supported nearly 300 dynamic leading social entrepreneurs in 17 countries who are implementing solutions at the grassroots level to solve the continent’s most pressing social problems. Ashoka Fellows in Africa are empowering people to create their own economic and civic opportunities, addressing the pandemic of HIV/AIDS and other health concerns, introducing more effective education systems, protecting the environment and natural resources, and resolving conflict. Building a critical mass of ground-breaking social entrepreneurs is an important step toward creating a vibrant and prosperous African continent.
Ashoka Anglophone West Africa would like to partner with the Peacecorps of Cameroon to identify and support leading social entrepreneurs in Cameroon. It is our belief that your prestigious organisation is in sync with our values and as such would make a valuable partner especially in the role of a nominators’ network, assisting us to discover diamonds in the rough from across your country and support them in their bid to change the world.
The link on this page is a video show casing the absolute necessity of Changemakers on the global stage and the best part of it all is that we have an opportunity to participate in finding them. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOdz5SwEwR8
If you know a social entrepreneur or have suggestions of others who would be valuable partners in an ecosystem for selecting and supporting social entrepreneurs, please contact Josephine Nzerem, Representative for Anglophone West Africa (jnzerem@ashoka.org +234 802 308 5551)
ХудожникBy Andrew Harmon
ADVOCATE.COM
Civil rights attorney Alice Nkom
Two women charged with homosexuality in the west central African nation of Cameroon are scheduled to go on trial Thursday, according to reports from advocacy groups.
All Out, a grassroots, international LGBT rights group, reports that the two women, referred to on the organization’s website only by their first names, Esther and Pascaline, were arrested last month in the small town of Ambam in Cameroon’s southern region. According to All Out, the women were turned in by an unidentified man who “denounced” the pair for their sexual orientation and were castigated by local residents as “witches [who] deserve death.”
The upcoming trial comes a week after a court decision to delay the appeal hearing of Jean-Claude Roger Mbede, a Cameroonian man who was sentenced to three years in prison for sending “gay text messages” and has been reportedly sexually assaulted during his imprisonment.
Both cases are represented by Alice Nkom (pictured), one of the few attorneys working on behalf of gays in a country where charges of same-sex relationships can carry a penalty of up to five years. Human rights groups including Amnesty International have called on the Cameroonian government to drop all laws criminalizing homosexuality. Meanwhile, other African countries including Liberia and Nigeria have moved in recent months to strengthen, not weaken, such laws.
It’s not clear whether the U.S. State Department, which has taken an affirmative position supporting global LGBT rights, will send American embassy diplomats to the trial, as it sometimes does in such cases.
Via Council for Global Equality:
Even before a case goes to court, embassy personnel may inquire into the conditions of individuals being held in detention or, in some places, seek to meet individually with those being detained both before and after trial. In Malawi, for example, the U.S. embassy sent observers to monitor the trial of a young couple accused of violating the country’s criminal prohibitions against homosexuality. In the case of the recent murder of human rights defender David Kato in Uganda, the U.S. embassy also sent diplomats to observe the court proceedings against his alleged attacker. The presence of U.S. and other foreign diplomats as observers in important court cases increases media attention and it puts the host government on notice that other governments are watching the case and that the outcome could impact bilateral relations.Художник
Poachers believed to be invading from Sudan
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Thursday, March 15, 2012, 3:06 PM
In this February 2012 file photo released by Boubandjida Safari Lodge, the carcasses of elephants slaughtered by poachers are seen in Boubou Ndjida National Park, located in Cameroon, near the border with Chad. The director of the World Wildlife Fund’s Central Africa program, Natasha Kofoworola Quist, said Thursday, March 15, 2012 that Cameroon’s military arrived too late and in too few numbers to save most of the elephants. She said at least half of the park’s 400 elephants have been killed.(AP Photo/ Boubandjida Safari Lodge)
Anonymous/ASSOCIATED PRESS
JOHANNESBURG — Soldiers in Cameroon are losing the battle to save the last elephants in a remote frontier park from marauding horsemen believed to be invading from Sudan, the World Wildlife Fund said Thursday.
“The forces arrived too late to save most of the park’s elephants, and were too few to deter the poachers,” said Natasha Kofoworola Quist, director of the fund’s Central Africa program. “WWF is disturbed by reports that the poaching continues unabated in Bouba N’Djida National Park and that a soldier’s life has been lost.”
She said at least half of the park’s 400 elephants have been killed.
David Hoyle, the fund’s conservation director in Cameroon, said the government had sent up to 150 soldiers into the national park on March 1 — taking action after weeks of pressure from the fund and from the European Union.
Hoyle said at least another 20 elephants were slaughtered during the first week of the military deployment.
“We know there have been confrontations between the military and the poachers, we don’t have figures on how many have been arrested or killed,” he said.
Hoyle said the soldiers had confiscated 49 tusks, representing 25 dead elephants.
This past year has seen an unprecedented increase in poaching of elephants for their tusks which are smuggled mainly to China and Thailand to make ivory ornaments.
Wildlife activists blame China’s growing footprint in Africa for an unprecedented surge in poaching elephants for their tusks. Most are believed to be smuggled to China and Thailand to make ivory ornaments.
Growing demand for ivory in China is “the leading driver behind the illegal trade in ivory today,” said Tom Milliken, an elephant and rhino expert for the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC. China has a legal ivory market that is supposed to be highly controlled but tons and tons of illegal ivory has made its way there in recent years, said the Zimbabwe-based Milliken, who spoke in a conference call with several World Wildlife Fund officers.
Chinese middlemen among new immigrants to Africa have “cornered the market” for poached ivory, offering prices that have put thousands of Central African ivory carvers out of work.
Ivory sales are banned in most countries since the 1980s under an international treaty to help conserve elephants.
Kofoworola Quist said the World Wildlife Fund has for years been warning Cameroon that its game rangers are not properly trained or equipped to address the scale, intensity and organized nature of the poaching.
Heavily armed poachers are believed to come from Sudan and Chad, moving on horseback with herds of cattle and camels and sometimes crossing through Central African Republic.
“They move 1,000 kilometers (more than 600 miles) on horseback to get to northern Cameroon because they have already wiped out the elephants of Chad and Central African Republic,” said Richard Carroll, vice president of the U.S. chapter of WWF.
Quist said the fund wants “a concrete assurance” from Cameroon’s President Paul Biya “that he will do whatever is necessary to protect the remaining elephants in Bouba N’Djida, and to bring the killers to justice.”
The fund had urged Cameroon to engage the governments of Chad and Sudan in a coordinated response.
“WWF has offered its assistance and is awaiting meaningful action from Cameroon and its neighbors,” she said.
Northern Cameroon’s elephant population represents 80 percent of the total population of savanna elephants in all of Central Africa.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/marauding-horsemen-killing-elephant-population-cameroon-demand-ivory-grows-article-1.1039744#ixzz1pDRrk83O
Cracks on wall caused by tremor
By Divine Ntaryike Jr
CameroonPostline.com — Residents of various settlements straddling the foot of Mt Cameroon in the country’s southwest are increasingly panic-stricken. Over the past one week, they have been witnessing and reporting mild tremors and explosions on the highest geographical peak in West Africa.
The most palpable of the protracting volcanic activities was recorded Friday night. A group of Norwegian and Chinese sightseers heading to the mountain summit truncated their sleep and engaged a hasty retreat when loud explosions awoke them at close to midnight.
“It was about 11:45 pm. We heard a heavy explosion followed by some earth vibrations. It lasted about 7 seconds. There were flames and sulphuric acid coming out of a spot where we found ash and we decided to go back down,” Peter Linonge Buma, a guide accompanying the tourists recounted Saturday.
Many residents of Buea, the administrative headquarters of the South West Region perched on the foot of the mountain, say they are on their toes. They are readying to vacate should the prolonging tremors and explosions gather intensity.
“I have packed a bag and made arrangements to leave town as soon as the vibrations and explosions begin to gather intensity. One never knows when a full-scale eruption may occur,” Gladys Kang, a student at the University of Buea told CameroonPostline.com Saturday. “Look around. Some of my neighbors have already bolted their doors and left as they cannot stand the earth tremors we’ve been witnessing over the past week.”
Geologists, trouping to Buea since the advent of the mild volcanic activity, have nonetheless been multiplying efforts at watering down the swelling fright. They are urging the population to remain calm, emphasizing that the ongoing abnormal behavior is routine for a volcanic highland of the stature of Mt Cameroon. They have been citing records to show that mild volcanic activity is but normal on the mountain.
The most recent eruptions on Mt Cameroon occurred in March 1999 and May 2000. The 4100-metre-high mountain lies along what geologists call the Cameroon volcanic line which stretches from the Gulf of Guinea to the northern parts of the country.
