Dear Supporters of Nahow, It’s time to brief you on what we at nahow have done so far this year. First and foremost, let me take this opportunity to thank you for your generous contributions.
While we seriously considered the option of building a secondary school in Cameroon, we realised that the coordination efforts from Germany would be massive. First, we would have to significantly increase our resources in acquiring more donations and second, phone calls and travels to Cameroon to monitor construction progress would just skyrocket. So we started thinking of other alternatives.
In April, we were surprised with a huge donation from Pimco (Allianz), that was interested in improving sanitation. We quickly embarked on the sanitary project we have started in our core project village Enwen. This project was now rolled out to 7 other schools in the vicinity of Batibo and would benefit some 2.800 pupils and 70 teachers. The regional school coordinator in Batibo (gov’t representative) was more than excited when learned of our intentions. He quickly identified the 7 most needy schools in his area of authority that would benefit from the project.
With funds available and a talented project manager in Cameroon, we quickly raised the sanitation structures for the identified schools in a record time of less than 4 months, despite the logistical challenges including horrible roads during the rainy season. In addition to the 7 schools, the sanitation facilities in Enwen were also completed. These sanitation facilities consisting of a building with 8 toilet cabin each was handed over to the Cameroon gov’t on the 12.08.2016 in a ceremony organised in Enwen. Please see pictures attached.
We used the ceremony to also handover the all new Kindergarten (the first ever) in the Enwen areato the gov’t to run. The Kindergarten wasn’t newly constructed. We transformed the canteen structure we built last time into a Kindergarten to reduce coordination efforts of Nahow in Cameroon and to ensure proper use of the building.
Furthermore, the ceremony was rounded up by the graduation of three of our trainees from the training centre in Enwen.
NEXT STEPS:
* We shall try to improve the existing health centre in Ewai (a neighbouring village of Enwen) and finance a once-a-month visit by a qualified and experienced medical doctor to the centre for consultation. The health centre serves some 2.500 inhabitants of that area but is currently in a dysfunctional state. More frequent visits will be organise depending on availability of funds.
* We are considering shifting our priorities from providing infrastructure to providing scholarships to the less privileged. This can either be a vocational training or school scholarship.
* We are still interested in protecting the environment by planting trees. Since the most common form of energy for cooking is wood and reforestation isn’t popular yet in that area, we think it is essential to start creating environmental protection awareness.
Again, many thanks for your continuous support and don’t hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.