Education Cameroon Project #18438

Help an orphan go to University

by Reach Out NGO

Project Report | Apr 10, 2015
The start of a new semester thanks to you

By Bibiche Mojempa and Marc Serna | Wealth Creation Department

Rahim in UB campus

Through your donations and the Orphanage support, Rahim has been able to continue to receive educational support. He continues to attend to some basic needs like payment of handouts in school, electricity bills and feeding.

Last week we went down to University of Buea to interview him to follow up on his situation. His grades have not been perfect and he will have to write again a few subjects, which is probably connected to his constant struggle to manage with the few resources we are providing for him, most days he eats the same thing, rice and tomato. He struggles to get through small payments (handouts, 2 dollars) and subsists on less than 40 dollars a month, slightly above the 1 dollar a day figure.

This are some of the contents of that interview:

What are your perspectives for the future, what would you like to be doing after your degree?

After getting my degree on Geography if I can save enough money I hope I can continue to a Master’s Degree. I would like to specialize myself on Urban Town Planning.

Whatever occupation I have I will have to assist my brothers and sisters at the orphanage as much as I can, at least to the point that every child there should have something going. I will always remain connected to my home.

What is your favorite thing about life as a student in UB?

The atmosphere is nice and it’s serious. The lecturers are serious. Especially on exam times everything is hard work.

What is the hardest part of life as a student in UB?

The issue of my feeding, as our schedule can run very long going back to the house and cooking late at night is exhausting, you get to the end of the day exhausted, especially on Mondays and Tuesdays. I don’t eat outside I cannot afford it. Every day I eat my rice and tomato.

How is your normal day-to-day life? What do you do on your leisure times?

Well we don’t really get much time, I have class from Monday to Saturday, on Sunday I prepare for next week lectures.

Do you keep in close contact with the orphanage? What can you tell us about them?

They have a problem right now as the roof is leaking and they need to fix it. They are renting farms to support themselves. There are 26 kids, 5 of them around my age the majority of them from 1 to 12 years old.

What would you like to say to the people who are supporting you?

God will bless all of them and he is seeing the support and will not leave them empty

I’m happy, all of you people have done so much, those donating and those in the office, and I’ll work hard to bring results to present.

In front of Social Managment Sciences faculty

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Jan 7, 2015
Back to University of Buea after the holidays

By Marc Serna | Assistant Head of Wealth Creation

It’s been three months and Rahim has succesfully adapted to his new life as a Geography student. He will not be writing exams till March so we cannot inform of his first grades yet, but he has been following all his courses, even though sometimes that required additional investments on materials.
The change from the orphanage to student life in Buea was not easy, a lot of things went on at the same time. Anyone who has been a student knows how the first year is, add to that coming from a very humble background, being new in a city, struggling every day with economic scarcity plus being just 18. But he has managed with inspiring maturity.

On the financial side as you know we have not gathered enough support yet, we could assist with the fees and some small academic expenses, but the bulk of the support came from Faith Building Association (FABASSO) of Muyuka. Fabasso loaned Money for the rents and feeding of the whole year for Rahim. Fabasso is a small group of people living with HIV that shares business practices, savings and moral and nutritional support among otheir things, they continue to be partners and beneficiaries of Reach Out, and even though their members are struggling in the informal economy, they have been supporting the orphanage for years, now they assisted Rahim. As we thank all of you we also publicly thank them, we are all part of this fight.

We hope all of our donors had great holidays with their families, Rahim did have them too although there was little time for leisure. He went back to the orphanage and spend most of his time assisting with house chores, since he is the eldest and one of the few adults, cleaning and even cooking for the children were parts of his daily tasks.

We will continue giving information about him through facebook (http://www.facebook.com/reachoutcameroon) and further globalgiving reports.

Rahim plans for the future also include earning some income as a photographer as he keeps studying, we are looking into the vialiablity of it and we will support him as we know how crucial it is for him to have a sustainable way of earning a living, so he can go through all of his academic years. For the long run we know that if he is lifted through these first rough patches, eventually he will succeed in life and transform into an example and a benefactor for all the kids of the Father House’s Orphanage.

As you can see you are not supporting only one boy, but a whole community.
Thank you for everything on our behalf and his.

P.D: We apologise for lack of new pictures, the holidays caught us and this report is due, but we will be updating the project with pictures from his Classroom this same morning, as soon as they reach us.We hope they might be available by the time this report is being read.

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