When there is war in a country, it is essential for humanitarian agencies to be able to respond quickly to the changing needs of suffering communities and not have their response slowed by needless bureaucracy. Fortunately, our partner in Cameroon, SHUMAS, is expert in this nimble approach, utilising all resources to the best purpose at any time.

For example, ten years ago, BSFA was able to fund the construction of an accommodation block near the SHUMAS office in Bamenda, so that disabled adults, who were learning new trades and life skills there, could live on site. However by 2017, the Anglophone crisis had escalated into war and the training centre, along with SHUMAS’ Biofarm in Kumbo and all schools in the region, was forced to close.

As the fighting gradually eased around Bamenda, SHUMAS was able to respond quickly to the needs of a different group – desperate teenage school drop-outs from the hot-spots of the war, many of whom were turning to prostitution or child soldiering in order to survive. It transformed the training centre and accommodation block into an agricultural training centre for these teenagers. The children are housed in the accommodation block whilst they are trained in organic farming and animal rearing and are then helped to start their own small farms in order to earn a living and feed their families.

Again in response to the current perceived need, part of the accommodation has now been given over to providing a safe space for women and children who have been displaced by the war and have been exposed to Gender Based Violence – a common weapon in wartime. Many of these women are traumatised and are now destitute widows or teenage single mothers with families to support. They are able to stay in the safe space for a week or two, while they receive specialised psycho-social counselling and other practical help to get them back on their feet and decide what is the best way forward for them.

The enormous need for such facilities as this has become evident in recent months, in the various cities where Internally Displaced women have fled to escape from the violence of war, and SHUMAS has created similar small safe spaces attached to their offices in Bafoussam, Douala, Yaounde and Maroua.