Building Resilience Project: Christian Blind Mission (CBM) International officials meet Beneficiaries in Far North Region
In a one-week field visit to the Far North region, the team met stakeholders and beneficiaries of the Building Resilience Project in the Mayo-Sava and Mayo-Tsanaga Divisions.
The Building Resilience Project which was officially launched on June 1, 2023, at the Meskine Baptist Hospital Maroua, has already carried out a significant number of actions in the field in the areas of health, education, income-generating activities and the promotion of the rights of people with disabilities. Many people have already benefited from the project’s interventions through training, the handover of work equipment, and mobile clinics.
To effectively appreciate the level of implementation of the project in the target divisions (Mayo-Sava, Mayo-Tsanaga, and Logone et Chari) and to measure the impact of the activities on the beneficiaries, a team from the national and international offices of CBM and the project management team from CBC Health Services headquarter made a working visit to the Far-North region of Cameroon from September 27-29, 2023.
In Mokolo, Mayo-Tsanaga Division, the team had a working session with the administrative authority, Senior Divisional Officer (SDO), Tam Likeng Richard Marcel who took the opportunity to tell the CBM delegation that the project will be of vital importance to the refugees in the Minawao refugee camp. “At the beginning of the year 2023 we had between 76,000 and 78,000 refugees, but with the number of people we are registering each time, we now estimate the number of refugees in the Minawao camp to be 80,000. In the whole division, we estimate that there are 200,000 displaced people. As you can imagine, the challenge is huge, and we really need the support of development partners like you,” the SDO said.
The team also visited the Government Bilingual High School at the Minawao Refugee Camp and Mora Bilingual High School in Mayo Sava Division, two of the three schools selected to host the Inclusive Learning Resource Centers before stopping at Government School Amtchalia. It should be noted that the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) is funding the Building Resilience Project through CBM. The aim of the visit was to assess the project’s implementation level and the impact of the activities on the beneficiaries.
During this working visit to the Far North region, the CBM and project management team of the Building Resilience project paid a working visit to the University of Maroua on September 27. Led by Program Manager, Jacques Chirac Awa, the team had a working session with the Director and staff of the Higher Teacher Training College Maroua. The purpose of the meeting was to assess the progress made in setting up the Inclusive Learning Resource Center. The Director of the Higher Teacher Training College (HTTC), Prof. Clement Dili Palai said that this initiative by the Building Resilience project will enable the teachers graduating from his school to be sufficiently trained to teach all children, without exception.
Meanwhile, a workshop on integrating inclusion into local and regional development plans was organized during the visit period. The workshop brought together key local and regional authorities including 12 municipal Mayors, the Regional Delegate of Decentralization and Local Development, and the President of the Regional Council. Participants took commitments to ensure that people with disabilities are part of the local and regional planning processes so their needs are not missed out. The workshop was facilitated by the CBM Community Based Inclusive Based (CBID) Advisor and the Project team.
At the end of their stay in Maroua, the CBM team called on the Core Team to work harder and with greater commitment to achieve set objectives.