Build a future for children in a conflict zone

Dear Friends,

It’s been close to one year and we can say that the journey they started eleven months ago when they entered into GlobalGiving has brought results, including a fully functioning fishpond that will have its first yield this March. 500 fish! If properly sold it’s basically their budget for half a year. In these eleven months the orphanage has completely changed its face and its issues: feeding, clean water, hygiene and health are all properly addressed; now we are talking about full sustainability and bringing up a school/vocational training center for the orphans and the community.

In fact, this relationship is not one sided, there are some things we have seen in Mah Di’s that we have learned and we are now advising other orphanages to copy as best practices. The way they keep clear records of donations and sources of revenue, the way they diversify their revenues among different sources, most of them good business ideas, the way they built a relationship with the community around them. This December the store room was full of bags of rice and other items given by individual benefactors, like you they care about the orphanage and they provide what they can. One day we were even surprised by the bike driver carrying us there, he did not only know the orphanage, he was a donor himself!

Since our last report, you, we and they have:

• Started construction of the poultry, the first payment was done and the pillars and the floor are being built up as you read these words. With such a structure the orphanage will be able to raise bigger, healthier chicken and continue growing. They will provide the resources to be adding chicken, but they can hardly come by the kind of capital for building such structure, that is why we are stepping in. We have uploaded a separate microproject in order to build a fully functional poultry, so far we can only provide for half of the desired size. If we exceed the goal we will also provide the chicks and feed. You can support them following this link, initial donations (no matter how small) are great because they help give visibility to the project, this microproject will last 60 more days before it is retired by globalgiving. https://www.globalgiving.org/microprojects/poultry-farm-for-mah-dis-orphanage/

• Built a small piggery to better rear pigs, the old one was a very old structure that crumbled when a young male got too excited.
• Provided sportswear for the orphans, a friend of the organization provided the clothes and these will make the cost of schooling less of a burden for the orphanage.
• Admitted 4 children from the community to the nursery school, who are paying their fees on installments, this project is already turning into a business!
Added a new baby to the family! He was brought to the orphanage by the Ministry of Social Affairs due to a family story we cannot disclose, he is now number 41.

We hope you are pleased and we want to close with some stories of our boys and girls, as told by Mah Diane.

“Bridgette (8) loves book. She loves to read, she scatters the whole library at any chance. She loves book, but you give her housework…. Anyway she is very good, she is 7 and teaches the children in the nursery from time to time, she teaches numbers, letters and songs she remembers from nursery herself. It was her initiative to start teaching. She says she wants to become a teacher when she grows up. I did not say anything but I love to see her teaching and I always give her some small sweet after class. But don’t give her housework she will run away… she has some small stubbornness in her.”

“Emanuel (21) is hard working, youths get to the age of adolescence and start getting ideas of their own, they don’t have time for you anymore, but he continues growing and getting more and more responsibilities. He is managing the fishpond, in fact we want to do more fishponds now, he has learned from the technicians how to build it and care for it and we think we can expand at half price. He will be the one building the poultry, leading the rest of boys. He gets construction jobs during school breaks and employs the other older orphans, and he always brings something for the house. He does not look like a teenager. Any problem; he is the one gathering all the other orphans to discuss. And he does not know how to keep secrets, if something is wrong I just go to him and he simply tells me, he just can’t lie or hide anything, it’s not in his nature. –Mom, better I tell you and we see what we can do-”

“Monica (4)… she gets up very early and wakes me up. Then she spends all day petting other children, she is always following everyone and beating, hugging, petting and always laughing”

We thank you for changing their lives and promise to continue reporting on their progress

P.D: Remember you can follow us on facebook www.facebook.com/reachoutcameroon and you can support the new microproject. Share it among friends and consider a small donation! https://www.globalgiving.org/microprojects/poultry-farm-for-mah-dis-orphanage

P.D2: As the picture says... talk to the children of Mah Di's! If you want to share a message of encouragement for the children write to us on facebook or directly by mail at marc@reachoutcameroon.org

 Three months have gone by and Mah Di’s orphanage continues to grow. We were happy to see the fishpond evolving and to know that a nursery school has started functioning inside the orphanage, we also assessed the improvement in feeding and clothing of the children as well as in furniture and learned that most of the chicken were sold out to pay for School Fees (Back to school period is always critical in Cameroon) but the business continues at a smaller scale. We could also get to know more about the amazing story of Mah Diane, a life of struggle and dedication.

Let us go into detail:

The fishpond is put in place and the fish are growing, Minor issues have been solved (like fixing the net to protect the fish from a kingfisher bird, arranging the pipe system) and the fish are starting to get fed with an interesting mixture of agricultural waste, soy beans and cow blood. The first harvest will be March 2016. It is Emmanuel, an able young man who does construction jobs from time to time while finishing his education, who is the responsible for the pond. One of the older orphans, he is a strong support for Mah Diane in many ways. “When he came back from holidays he went to me and apologized because he could not make much money, he said things were not really easy for him and handed me 20.000 Francs, he did not know how proud he was making me. He always tries to bring something to the house”..

 A nursery school started inside Mah Di’s orphanage, yes a nursery school! Mah Diane did her calculations, Nursery school fees are really expensive in Cameroon, but teachers are not. She realized she could hire two teachers (Priscila and Nadeige) to teach Primary 1 and Nursery levels, together with Mah Diane they are teaching 18 of the children. We can’t predict how far this venture will go, but we won’t be surprise if with time a fully functioning school comes to being in Mah Di’s.

The children’s feeding is improving significantly. Hunger and fights for food are something of the far away past, and we were even offered to eat with them during our last visit. (We accepted and ate their food, it would have been very rude under Cameroonian tradition to reject food from the orphanage, they are humble but also proud.). Also a new set of chairs was just bought recently.

The chickens have been sold but they are a few left to maintain the business and they are starting to expand again, the just bought 10 new chicks. Chicken has really been the financial sustain of the orphanage and they are now planning to have a more serious structure for a poultry. So far poultries have been run in different unused rooms, posing evident health threats and occupying very much needed space. This is the next project we’ve set our minds to, expand their poultry, as it is another way of putting sustainable structures in place in the orphanage so that eventually Reach Out can pull off supporting basic needs and the Orphanage is self-suficient.

I had the opportunity to have a long conversation with Madam Diane, and get to know a little bit better why is she doing what she is doing. We are considering a full interview for one of our next reports if we ever catch her with a little time to spare, at over 50 years of age she is an incombustible women hard to find idle. Among other things we got to learn that the orphanage was running for many years in her own house before she actually started in Mah Di’s site. In fact it’s always a problem with Diane to find out which children are biologically her own and which are not.

“When I finished primary school I did not have anyone to support me, I never even knew what I could do. I was a destitute, but someone come forward and provided for my education. They put me in a vocational training and it landed me a job and a future. So I started giving back to anyone in need. The destitute are my calling. I had abandoned children living with me way before we started the orphanage”

There was some time left during the visit, so we have to admit it, some of us just played with the children for a while. I have to say I’m at awe of how much they can enjoy a bit of chalk and having someone willing to spend time with them. You are supporting a beautiful family with 40 very promising minds.

Thank you!