Children sponsorship letter from Mbalmayo
18/12/2007
2007 Semester report on the evolution of the SOS Children’s Village of Mbalmayo
It is with great pleasure that we give you recent information on the SOS Children Village of Mbalmayo which is the first functional project SOS Kinderdorf International in Cameroon. It receives and cares for orphans and abandoned children.
The 2007 half year has known lots of events and activities. Among them, we will start by regretting our collaborator, the leader of the Nsimeyong-damase SOS home for young girls, who died on January 2007. This affected the personnel as well as the children. With time, they recover from this.
Planning aimed at a better functioning of the Village at all level is now a reality, especially now that it is based on an auto assessment process which allows us to verify the reliability of our act and the conformity with the SOS Children standard manuals.
During this first mid-year, we had two children admission commissions to full our strength. Now, the village has 102 children composed of sixty three (63) boys and (39) thirty nine girls shared within the eleven (11) family houses. We plan to complete this strength before the beginning of the 2007-2008 academic year, that is next September.
Schools
Concerning their school results, our children have been very good. All the ten who presented examinations in the primary school passed with a lot of success. We had admission to upper level closed to 85% among the youth, for those in the primary school (69) as well as those in the secondary school (22). We are still expecting results from official exams presented by the youths.
In the SOS Children’s Village Nursery school of Mbalmayo, the children won a price of honour, after their wonderful participation to the march past organised on the occasion on the Youth Day on February 11th, 2007. Still in the nursery school, one instructor benefited from training on media library at the French Cultural Center in Yaounde. This serves as a preparation to open a media library for the youngest ones in this nursery school.
Health
Concerning health, we benefited from a dental tracking, prevention and consultation campaign in the Hermann Gmeiner Primary School in partnership with an association of African medical doctors. Through this campaign, the dentist examined all the pupils who attend this primary school, and prescribed the appropriate treatment. The Youth have received vaccines to prevent some diseases, and some of them followed treatments to specialists: ophthalmologists, psychologists, ORL, etc
There are common illnesses like malaria, pulmonary infection, parasitizes that some youth suffered. They always received appropriate treatment in the SOS Children’s Village health centre.
The children showing behavioural troubles still benefit from a psychological follow-up from an outside specialist. The results are encouraging.
Relationships with natural families
For quite sometime, we have put some stress on the research of children’s natural families. With the new information collected, we will now be able to register and/or to regularise the civil status of some of our children. Many have also been able to pay visits, and to even have a stay within their natural families. This helps the children to keep in touch with their roots, culture and traditions.
We also organised a seminar during which we questioned and thought about how to improve our partnership with children’s natural families, for the best interests of the children. It was very interesting and challenging.
Mothers, Children and Youth activities
The spiritual follow-up of the children goes on with the confirmation of eight youth from protestant families.
SOS mothers and aunts have been particularly honoured on the International Women’s Day celebration, on March 8th, and also on the Mother’s day celebration last 3rd of June. Particularly on the Mother’s Day, all the youth of the four Yaounde SOS Youth Homes came early in the morning, and offered them a special day, with gifts, cards, cakes, and so onÂ…
We have encouraged the Youth to put in place a Youth Council which main objective is to facilitate young people’s participation to their development and in the decision making process. Many group discussions have been organised along the semester to their benefit, and they also took part to a workshop on soap making. The soaps have been used in the youth homes, and distributed to some SOS Children’s Village collaborators.
SOS mothers and aunt of the SOS Children’s Village of Douala are currently receiving practical training in the SOS Children’s Village of Mbalmayo. The SOS Children’s Village of Douala will be soon functional.
Holidays
With the end of the school year, we have put in place an activity program for the holidays which started with the African child day celebration (June 16th, ), followed by the SOS Children’s Village International day on the June 23rd.. For these two occasions, a Village Fair, round tables, sporting activities, games and other attractions were organised.
The natural families who expressed the wish to have the children during the holidays will take them for some weeks. Others will go on holidays with their SOS mothers.
Relationships with local authorities and community
Concerning the relationships with the authorities, the village has been honoured by the visit of the prefect of Nyong and So’o division, Mr Ndongo Esssame James. The head of district of the Nyong and So’o division is Mbalmayo and the prefect is the head of this division.
In our family reinforcement program, we provided assistance to sixty eight (68) families among which we count two hundred children who benefit directly from our assistance within in the Mbalmayo community. They receive food, medical care and school follow-up. We have been able to make a community farm with these families, and provide micro credit to twenty five families in order to assist them in livestock, soap making, and general sales projects.
Year and year out, children are growing, their needs too. The SOS Children’s Village of Mbalmayo is happy to provide assistance to the children in-ward and out-ward through sponsors contributions.
While giving you these information on the evolution of the SOS Children Village of Cameroon since the beginning of the year, allow me in the name of all the children taken care of and the collaborators of the structure, address you our sincere thanks.
Relevant Countries: Cameroon.