By Pride Yanu Ngasa | Project Coordinator
1 introduction
Schools have been prime targets of arson and other attacks, while teachers and students have been victims of violence, assaults, kidnapping, maiming, and in extreme situations, cold-blooded killing. As a result of this crisis, many orphanages are used as community schools.
This project supports child protection in Southwest Cameroon by helping out outstanding orphanages and spaces and also covers emergency response costs for at-risk children in conflict areas. Before 2015, bole holes, livestock-rearing facilities, and schools have been constructed with donations received. The donation received from the GlobalGiving Platform pays teachers from two community schools every academic year from September to June. These community schools are Mah Di's orphanage, Kumba 1 and Hope Alive Foundation Tollgate Tiko. Hope alive was an orphanage in Ekona and due to the Anglophone Crisis, relocated to Tiko. These two orphanages now operate as community schools for the less privileged with a total population of 250 pupils/students
Between May 31ST and JUNE 2nd 2022, the Reach Team visited the two schools and the aim of this activity was to have a session with teachers in these schools in order to evaluate the project activities, identify gaps, and challenges to better inform activities for the next academic year. As a result of the socio-political crisis, pupils, students and teachers have been exposed to physical, economic and psychosocial challenges which have affected their psychosocial well-being, thus affecting the transfer of knowledge. The need to assess the impact of post-traumatic experience on pupils and teachers is important and provide/refer the affected for proper care in order to reduce the effects of trauma and build a friendly environment for learning in schools.
1.1 Objectives of Visit
- Evaluate activities in the schools to better inform on a scale-up in the next academic year.
- To carry out a baseline survey on the mental well-being of teachers towards pupils in schools.
- Conduct educative talks within the schools on Menstrual Hygiene.
2. Activities/methodology
2.1 Educational talks on menstrual Hygiene and Sex Education:
This was conducted in class 6 involving girls from classes 4 to 6 ranging from ages 9 to 17 years which has been evaluated and considered as the period for the start of menstrual flow. The focus was on educating these pupils on proper body hygiene during menstrual flow. This was a question-and-answer session with over 50% of the pupil actively participating and expressing satisfaction at the end of the talk. This was followed by an interactive session which included boys from classes 4 to 6 with a focus on personal hygiene, preventing the spread on airborne, water-borne and food-borne diseases and hand wash techniques.
2.2 Evaluation of school performance in Public Examination. (Government Entrance Examination (GCE), First School Leaving Certificate (FLSC).
An evaluation of the schools’ activities and performance were assessed with the school administration presenting the results of public examinations. In the Government Common Entrance Examinations, Hope Alive Foundation and Mah Di scored 100% (13 pupils sat and all passed in list A) and 95% (26 pupils sat; 23 passed in list A, 2 passed in list B and 1 failed) respectively. The results of the FSLC were not available at the time of evaluation.
2.3 Administrating of questionnaires to access teachers’ mental health.
In order to assess the mental health of teachers within the crisis context, a key-informant questionnaire was administered to teachers of the two schools. 13 teachers were targeted with 11 responding on the day of interviews. These questionnaires were closed-ended and open-ended with Hope Live Foundation having five teachers, four females and one male and Mah Di’s having 6 teachers and two were absent. Below is the data visualization from finds in the two schools.
3. Findings carried out in the two schools
Mood of mental Health for the past seven days
In the past seven days, teachers expressed the following in the past 7 days; 5 were sad, 3 showed fear, 5 were angry, no shame and loneliness, 11 were stressed and 4 were nervous.
Mood of mental health for the past one month
In the past month, 4 teachers were sad, 4 expressed fear, 6 were angry, 0 shame, 10 were stressed, 1 was lonely and 5 were nervous
Need for psychosocial support
4 teachers prior to this interview confirmed to have PSS before and all accepted to be in need of PSS. All the teachers working at Mah Di’s were amongst those to have never received PSS and teachers at Hope Alive Foundation received PSS one time in the past but are in need of this at the said time
Other aspects evaluated
With respect to other aspects evaluated, 7 were safe in their current location, 1 had an alternative source of income besides their salary and 7 were household heads. Based on the information gathered some reasons why some teachers are stressed can be associated to low salary which cannot meet up to their basic needs and support the family as well with them depending solely on this source of income
4, Challenges faced by teachers
5. Recommendations
v To buy school toiletries for both schools.
v Giving an award to the best pupils in each class is a way of encouragement to these children.
v Buy drinking buckets and cups for each class.
v Increase the number of classrooms and number of teachers for both schools.
Based on the visit on 31st at Hope Alive Foundation. The school administration begged Reach Out to support them in printing end-of-year certificates for Nursery 2, class 6 pupils, and certificates of acknowledgement to its teachers in the school. Reach out produced 32 certificates for the school and bought gifts for the best two children of each class for the whole school Reach out staff also attended the graduation ceremony to present these gifts. These gifts contain 16 wash hand basins, 1 ½ dozen of 60 leaves exercise books, half a packet of pens, and a packet of pencils.
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