Meetings meetings and more meetings. I have met with many Common Initiative Groups, Schools, and credit unions for several reasons. To introduce myself. It is the natural first step when you want to do work with something. You talk to it and tell it a little bit about yourself and discuss your qualifications. Needs assessment is another reason. As a Peace Corps Agroforestry volunteer I am here to find out what problems Cameroonian farmers have. Hopefully I will know how to help them, and if not I can do research or find knowledgeable farmers/agronomists who DO have the answers. Lastly these meetings have gotten me out and about exploring the culture and livelihoods of Cameroon.
The Common Initiative Groups (CIGS) have been mostly farmers and mostly older women. They welcome me warmly and usually at the end of most meetings offer me food, palm wine, or beer. Sometimes they even sing. The needs I have identified have ranged from diseases and pests to reliance on expensive chemical fertilizers and no money for capital. Also, a lot of male farmers drink any money they made from the harvest during dry season. Thus their families starve. Basic business education, soil fertility, and better crop management training is in order. I am outlining a plan of attack with the ministry of agriculture and KFC. Over the next several months I will hopefully hold training sessions that will address the farmer's professed needs. Though immediately I am traveling to Ngaoundere for some Peace Corps in service training. Then I am off to explore the waste land deserts of the grand north.
The few schools that I have met with have shown much interest in environmental clubs and human rights clubs, though I will be focusing on environmental clubs. I have no idea how the idea of human rights clubs came about. The Cameroonian I am partnered with, Justin, scheduled a meeting with me to go over our plan of attack to start these clubs. He told me that I came up with the idea. I recall no such thing. I digress, the meeting today went really well. I met with a large group of high school students and pretty much gave them an introduction to environmental and human rights clubs. Questions were asked and giggles were had at the site of a white man. The principal at the school I met with today offered me a teaching gig. I think I will pass, for now. Since they are at the end of a term and exams are approaching work will begin in earnest next term in April.
The credit unions are small micro-finance institutions that provide loans to their members. The members themselves fund the unions and earn interest on the stocks that they buy. Money is made through the interest paid on loans taken out. Members are allowed to take loans of a size relative to their number of stocks. This ensures proper monetary amounts are given to capable members. My capacity to help them revolves around providing business training to the members. I also am researching using credit unions to fund farming cooperatives that market cocoa. This idea was actually the genesis of a Cameroonian. They are smart. Sometimes I feel like I am here to nudge their ideas along.
I guess each of these activities themselves merit more in depth discussion. Of note is my failing grasp of the English language. If you encounter words incorrectly used, it is because I have been in Africa too long.
No comments:
Post a Comment