“Education is the door to freedom, democracy and development”
Nelson Mandela
Access to quality education is a key factor in empowering children to become active participants in the transformation of their societies.
It has been identified as one of the U.N’s 17 Global Goals to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. We believe that a quality education is a right for all children not just a privilege for some.
There are still 57 million children in the world who are not enrolled in education and more than half of these live in sub-Saharan Africa.
Challenges in Cameroon
Cameroon has a significant lack of infrastructure and within it’s increasingly isolated rural communities, there is a huge need for a programme of building classrooms, health centres and water sources.
Many of the existing buildings that we have seen are in such a poor state of repair that they are not only uninhabitable in the rainy season but also dangerously close to collapse.
A country in Crisis
Since independence there has been increasing tensions between the francophone majority and the anglophone minority in Cameroon, which turned into a socio-political crisis in 2016 and has now escalated into war. All schools were closed across the two anglophone regions, many were raped and killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced.
As this period of war extends, Cameroon is in danger of losing a whole generation of educated citizens. Our work has never been more important and we are working with SHUMAS to provide access to learning for as many children as we can.
There are still hundreds of schools that need help and we hope that we will be able to continue to provide the small assistance that enables SHUMAS to make such a huge difference to the lives of so many deserving children in Cameroon.