Blog|Cameroon|16 May 2022

Pete Garratt, Executive Director of Programmes and People at Street Child, reflects on his recent trip to Cameroon

Pete Garratt

Nestled on the lush slopes of the active volcano that is Mount Cameroon, the highest peak in West and Central Africa, at first glance Buea is a peaceful town. However on a second glance, as I was able to do on a recent visit to the Street Child Cameroon team, you see the tell-tale signs of conflict. Crowded informal settlements for displaced people, shrapnel damaged buildings, neglected industry curtailing job opportunities and above all schools that are bursting at the seams as they try to cope with the influx of extra children who have arrived over the last five years. While conflict in Ukraine gathers the headlines, this corner of Cameroon is home to a conflict of its own where rebel groups have made education and schools in particular the battlefield, disrupting, threatening, and closing schools.

 

True to Street Child’s ethos we are partnering and supporting terrific local organisations who are determined to do everything they can to ensure children are safe and learning. Vincent, the executive director of NADEV characterised our partnership as one of deep trust, praising our support as enabling them “to peel back the layers of the organisation and support our specific priorities”.

 

Vincent took me to visit Likomba school, which are three schools that share a site that should be big enough for one. With the support of the UEFA Foundation, we have equipped teachers and volunteer community workers with the skills to use sport and games, as well as basic counselling sessions, to encourage children of all ages to engage and process their feelings. I especially enjoyed meeting Victory, aged 12, and her classmates, as they played a simple game designed to recognise the different emotions their friends and families may be experiencing. She explained it to me.  “I was acting being sad. I have been learning how to recognise the feelings my friends are experiencing and to support them”.

 

One evening I met with Margaret, the founder of local organisation AMEF.  Over a cup of tea she recounted the stories of communities being forced out of their homes and running away to find safety; of terrible atrocities that took place;, of the disproportionate impact that women and young girls bore, not least as they had their dignity and options taken away, learning stopped as did the ability to provide for their families. Margaret and her fellow volunteers are determined to change the narrative, prompting initiatives that restore women’s safety, freedom and options, and it’s Street Child’s privilege to provide support.

 

Margaret recounted how they had recently arranged, with books provided by Street Child and our partner BookAid, for schools to start a reading programme which had gone so well, such was the hunger of children and teachers alike to work together to grow their reading skills, that a school reading festival is now being launched – something that had happened in the distant days before fighting broke out.  Green shoots that are signs of a better time ahead, I hope.