Change a Girl's Life Through Microentrepreneurship

Hello Dear Donors

The past three months were very busy with the implementation of THE LISTENER’S CLUB PROGRAM - Keep A Girl Alive  which is a continuation of Make an Impact on 20 Girl's Education – Cameroon Project. This phase of the project aimed at  identifying a second set of …… girls who are drop out from school  and young widows from Great Soppo and Tole of Buea sub Division. The objectives of the project still remained the same that is;

-          Raising Awareness on HIV/AIDS and explaining the ways of infection and  the methods of prevention

-          Training and coaching on basic bookkeeping for increased households incomes through seed capital provided  for Income Generating Activities (IGA)

The 23 girls who live in the highly vulnerable communities of Tole and Great Soppo were empowered for self sustainability, self esteem through educative talks and coaching sessions on health with emphasis on: HIV and AIDS, Prevention of Mother to Child Transmission (PMTCT), Family Planning, nutritional counselling and Gender Based violence as a barrier to good health. They were also drilled on basic bookkeeping for better management of their individual businesses through seed capital provided to them by Reach Out Cameroon with the hope to achieve economic self reliance.

Of the 23 girls who took part in the program, 20 were supported as described below:

-          Hair dressing, pedicure and manicure beneficiaries at the Odilia’s Hairdressing Saloon

04 beneficiaries who are into hairdressing benefitted from; combs, a big thread, needles, towel, 5 liters of shampoo and conditioner, a pair of scissors and a hand drier.  02 others who are into manicure and pedicure benefitted from; nail files, a pack of cortex, a pack of artificial nails just to mention a few

-           Petit Trading Initiatives for Girls in Tole

              14 participants benefitted from Okro, pepper, eru, tomotoes sedddings, cartoons of  fresh fish, and plastic Chairs for rentals

All in all, the project beneficiaries were very happy and even composed a song for Reach which they titled: “Reach Out Is Soo Good’.

When asked to give their impressions about the impact of the project in their lives, Elizabeth from Tole and Delish from Great Soppo had this to say respectively:

Delish  - Great Soppo: “  I want to  thank Reach Out Cameroon and partners for coming with this wonderful initiative of empowering young female school drop outs.  I did not have such an opportunity when I dropped out of school due to pregnancy  so therefore, I  urged all my friends who have benefitted from this program to take whatever they have received very seriously and work hard to better their lives as I will do with mine…”.

Elizabeth - Tole : “ … hum!!!! I thought that we the girls of Tole were the forgotten generation. I am very happy with what Reach Out has been doing to us and the entire Tole Community. I am encouraging Reach Out to continue with their good work and that God should add more grace to the wonderful work they are doing for the poor girls of Tole”.