SHIPMENT FEEDBACK

Crossroads’ partners on this shipment wrote of the endless factors that keep people trapped in poverty: unreliable electricity supply, limited clean water, leading to outbreaks of disease, and poor roads and transport in rural areas, so that farmers find it hard to get produce to outside markets. “Most families can’t afford higher education,” they wrote, “and healthcare services and supplies are a major challenge.”

“Early marriage, slavery and sexual exploitation are common paths for girls without education.”– NGO director

Crossroads’ partners have been working for more than a decade to invest in development across all aspects of their local communities with programmes like health education, reaching 250,000 people, and socio-economic support and empowerment reaching 3,000 people. Since beginning their work, they’ve seen improvements like a reduction in youth crime, more stable family networks, and better access to health care.

(Above) Volunteers from the community and our full-time team loaded goods into the container at Crossroads’ site in Hong Kong, May 2018.

(Above) Unloaded boxes from the shipment are now being sorted, processed, unpacked, and distributed, so that they can begin investing in lives.

(Above 1st pic) Staff from our partner NGO in Cameroon begin sorting through clothes for distribution to their target communities. (Above 2nd pic) Donated uniforms from Hong Kong are already equipping youth sports teams, where football is an incredibly valuable way to reach young boys and girls at risk, creating opportunities for mentorship, leadership training, health and mental well-being.

 

This shipment included goods to help equip and expand their projects, such as:

  • Audio-visual equipment for training and education
  • Toys, sports equipment and educational supplies for community schools and youth sports projects
  • Office furniture, computers and office supplies to improve administration
  • Hundreds of books for schools and libraries
  • Beds and bedding to equip schools and clinics
  • Computers and monitors for digital literacy training

We look forward to further feedback from these partners, as the goods are distributed and put to use.

Reference No. :  S4767

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SHIPMENT FEEDBACK

Ranking just 151 out of 189 on the Human Development Index, Cameroon is facing significant challenges. Although the people of Cameroon do not suffer with poverty to the same extent as some of their neighbours, slow economic development and poor infrastructure mean that access to education, healthcare and employment opportunities are lacking, particularly in rural areas. Exacerbating these issues is the tension and violence in the country’s English speaking regions, where growing conflict has led to the internal displacement of many thousands of people.

In response to Cameroon’s challenges, our NGO partners in the region are working to improve access to education and primary healthcare through a number of different programmes. They are also involved with providing direct assistance and support to those who have lost their homes or been forced away as a result of the internal conflict. The educational projects run by our partners are comprehensive and are designed to provide students with skills that can provide them with real opportunities, they range from primary school and basic literacy schemes right through to young adult IT and vocational training centres. It is in supporting these educational programmes, and the internally displaced persons outreach, that this shipment has made the biggest difference.

“The shipment came when it was highly needed. It has helped to address many problems, especially those faced by the internally displaced persons”  NGO director

(Above) Forced to leave her home after it was burnt down during the escalating violence, Mary* was left with nothing. Here she is receiving a donation of new clothes that arrived as part of this shipment and, thankfully, through our partners she has found the support she needed to start rebuilding her life. (* Name changed)

 

(Above) Children gather in one their classroom at one of the primary schools run by our partners.

The goods that were received in this shipment have had some very clear and immediate impacts on the beneficiaries who our partner’s support. Here are just a few examples:

  • Modern desks and chairs have allowed space for 100 more students to attend our partner’s primary school.
  • New toys and games have found a home being enjoyed by over 200 children as part of our partner’s nursery programme.
  • Much-needed computers have renewed our partner’s IT centre, allowing the project’s expansion to over 400 students.
  • Vital clothes and mattresses have provided relief to over 100 internally displaced people, many of whom lost everything escaping violence and conflict.

Without shipments like this one, their incredible successes would not be possible. We, and our partners, are endlessly grateful for all who contributed to make this shipment a reality.


PHOTOS OF GOODS IN USE

“The shipment’s impact has been extremely great in enhancing our work. Many children, particularly internally displaced children, were relieved of their suffering” – NGO director

(Above) Internally displaced persons receive new clothes through our partner’s organisation.

(Above) A computer training classroom run by our partners.

(Above) A community health consultation run by our partners.

Reference No. :  S1358C

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SHIPMENT FEEDBACK

“Our centre attends to almost 2,500 persons a year. These are the people who are directly impacted and we have an average of 60 visits a day before now when many people of our region have escaped the civil unrest,” write Crossroads’ partners in Cameroon.

Our partner NGO’s work caters for orphans and vulnerable children, and the wellbeing of individuals needing rehabilitation therapy. They operate in a town of around 5,000, but their patients come from many miles away to access their facilities, because services are so scarce. Some have been disabled by diseases like polio and complications from HIV, some others sought help in traditional medicines that went wrong, and caused disabilities. A shipment from Crossroads has contributed to supporting their projects as they seek to improve and expand their services.

“In short we cannot afford a lot of things so the shipment acts as a starting point for us and hopefully we will continue with the care and provision!”  – NGO director

(Above) A human chain unloads the precious cargo

We look forward to hearing more stories of the impact of these goods as they are installed, distributed, and put to use creating opportunities for vulnerable children and youth and the disabled in Cameroon.


SUPPORT FOR CHILDREN’S HOME

A group of children and staff from a children’s home housing more than 40 children benefited from the shipment goods. Donations of blankets, milk, shoes and dolls were distributed to this home and many other children’s home within the community our NGO operates.

“Many more orphanages were given the milk for their children. Unfortunately we could not take pictures in all circumstances!” – NGO staff


“The prices of calipers, crutches, prosthesis and other appliances are not cheap”, wrote our partner who runs a physiotherapy center to support individuals who are recovering from physical injuries or disabilities. “The most significant impact of receiving this shipment is the fact that the centre can carry on its activities on patients without the constant worry of needing to find funds to buy machines and keep the place alive.”

(Above 1st) Our team of volunteers in Hong Kong loading one of the pieces of gym equipment which is now installed in a local physiotherapy center in Cameroon. (Above 2nd) One of the staff at the physiotherapy Centre tests the treadmill upon arrival.

FURTHER IMPACT:

  • Each television screen can allow 260 students to see class presentations and screening of academic videos.
  • Gym equipment saved approximately US$3,500 from their budget
  • Beneficiaries impacted directly: about 3000
  • Beneficiaries impacted indirectly: about 10,000

(Above pics) A group of men and women supported by our partner NGO try out some of the shoes that were part of the shipment. The work boots will allow them to work safely and more effectively.

Reference No. :  S4741

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SHIPMENT FEEDBACK

Our NGO partner’s work includes supporting and providing help for all the educational needs of children of the most vulnerable farmers in this area of Cameroon, who struggle to provide for their families. They aim to support the growth and development of social amenities such as schools, clinics and hospitals in their community. Their director told us:

“Your support will undoubtedly play a key role in our success in improving the social conditions of our members and communities structures like schools and other small community based organizations.” – NGO director

When our shipment arrived, there was much excitement! Through the massive donations of goods they were able to expand their work beyond the community and targeted group they often support. Social centres such as orphanages, rehabilitation centres, prisons, church groups and other individuals benefited from the shipment with a total of 5,000 people impacted directly by the goods.

(Above) NGO staff assemble office furniture received from the shipment.

 

(Above) Children from the orphanage are thrilled with their gifts.


SUPPORT FOR A FAMILY AT HOME

 It is common in rural homes for children not to have a proper place to do their homework, which affects their interest in studying after school. The Ngonganong family received some child-size furniture for their children.

“The table and chairs are helping my children as they use it for reading, and doing their assignments and homework from school. I am sure to pass to another family in the future when my children have grown past the age to use the table and chairs,” said Mr. Ngonganong.

This is just one family whose children have benefited. Others have received clothing and bedding. Children in the orphanage and local school have new books, and many children in the local community received toys and stationery.

Our NGO partners support orphans and vulnerable children. From the goods received in the shipment, they were able to support a children’s home in their community that provides education.

Reference No. :  S4672

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Care and Capacity Building for Women, elderly and Children

Women in Cameroon from impoverished families often live in precarious situations. If they lose their husbands, they may be driven from the family home, and left to care for children with no income. If they weren’t taught skills or learnt to read and write, they can be forced into poorly paid work in vulnerable conditions, and even prostitution. Crossroads is sending a shipment to a project which has a number of programmes reaching out to vulnerable women and children. They offer care and support to widows, orphans, elderly people and children in difficult family situations. They have a micro-finance project, a library for youth and social and financial support for HIV-positive pregnant women and children.

Potential impact:Cameroon_S2893_2

  • Clothing & household equipment for hundreds of widows and orphans
  • Equipment for youth programme for 1000 young people
  • Equipment for vocational training programmes for 500 families.

 
Cameroon_S2893_1

Shipment includes:

  • Books, stationery and basic school supplies
  • Toys and sports equipment
  • Computers for vocational training and administration
  • Clothing and household goods for vulnerable families.

 

 


Cameroon_S2893_4

 

Mama Elizabeth lost her husband in 2002, and was left with 8 children to raise and no job. Our partner organisation, gave her training – not only to make baskets, but also to establish a micro-enterprise to market and sell them. She has her dignity, and her children are fed and can attend school.

 

Our shipment will provide materials to help in vocational training to help more people like Mama Elizabeth.

 

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Cameroon Snapshot

Population: 22.25 million

Capital: Yaoundé

Cameroon is in the west Central Africa region, with natural features including beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas.

Although the country as a whole has improved standards of literacy and healthcare, there is still a long way to go. Less than half of children go on to secondary education, and over 40% are involved in some kind of child labour. In rural areas, less than half the population has access to clean water and sanitation.

Cameroon_S2893_5

Child Care and Community Development

S39603In the rural Santa region of Cameroon, subsistence farming is the main activity for many people to support their families. However, there is a need for agricultural training for young people, and demand for job training to give new ways to earn an income. There are also high numbers of orphans and vulnerable children or households headed by children or grandparents largely due to the effects of HIV/AIDS. Many of these children do not go to school, and their families cannot afford healthcare, and lack essential supplies such as clothing and bedding.

Our partner organisation working in Cameroon helps to provide vocational training for young people, while seeking to provide orphans and other vulnerable children with support and assistance. Advocacy of child rights is an important part of their work. They have asked Crossroads for a shipment to help them expand their projects.

Community participation is an essential aspect of our partner’s approach to community development. For example, people are encouraged to participate in savings and loan projects for the economic security and sustainability of their local community.

Shipment includes:

  • Clothing and bedding to be given to orphans and needy children
  • Computers for schools and training programmes
  • Furniture and equipment for office work
  • Household items, such as cookers, for needy families
  • Job creation tools such as sewing machines
  • School furniture and equipment

S39601HIV-positive patients and their families need good nutrition in order to maintain their health (ARVs) because they may cause adverse side effects when taken without food.. Some clients struggle to commit to taking antiretroviral drugs.
Therefore our partner’s HIV project provided supplemental nutritional support to clients during the first year of the project. The project also provided food to malnourished and bed-ridden clients. As this support was not sustainable for the long term, the project introduced agriculture training and material support to promote household food security. The beneficiaries’ clients learned modern farming methods and were provided with seeds, cuttings, and animals, such as goats and chickens.


The shipment will provide HIV/AIDS affected families with essential support in areas like health education and income generation as mentioned above.

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Cameroon Snapshot

Population: 22.25 million
Capital: Yaoundé

Cameroon is in the west Central Africa region, with natural features including beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas.

Although the country as a whole has improved standards of literacy and healthcare, there is still a long way to go. Less than half of children go on to secondary education, and over 40% are involved in some kind of child labour. In rural areas, less than half the population has access to clean water and sanitation.

Cameroon_S2893_5

Community development

Most of Cameroon’s poor live in rural areas. While poverty is slowly decreasing in the cities, people in villages and small towns are seeing an increase in poverty. The people hardest hit are those most vulnerable, like children with disabilities, widows, and unemployed youth who find it hard to get a job outside subsistence agriculture.

0unZ80wcD_g7yy6kjL5naS2CQeKu9kRkSvYBvZVFJDADSmkUkyYc9RrXD-Uh3NpKqpkN7rV7=w1246-h767Crossroads’ shipment went to a part of Cameroon that had an industrial boom around the 1960s, but that industry has moved on, and infrastructure is crumbling, warehouse buildings lying empty. Social services and faciltiies are very underresourced, and most people still rely on agriculture to survive. According to our partners who received the shipment, “abject poverty and destitution is the order of the day. Street children, orphans and vulnerable children abound.”

When everyone is so poor, even with family support, children with serious disabilities rarely have the chance to go to school. Yet one of the schools served by this shipment offers innovative schemes like testing for children with dyslexia, and special glasses that help them learn – a first in the region – and vegetable cultivation for pregnant women, to help prevent some of disabilities that can form in babies from malnutrition in the womb.

Crossroads’ shipment included medical goods, tools for vocational training, educational supplies, furniture and much more that are investing for the future of this challenged region.

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Tanzania Snapshot Cameroon Snapshot

Population: 22.25 million

Capital: Yaoundé

Cameroon is in the west Central Africa region, with natural features including beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas.

Although the country as a whole has improved standards of literacy and healthcare, there is still a long way to go. Less than half of children go on to secondary education, and over 40% are involved in some kind of child labour. In rural areas, less than half the population has access to clean water and sanitation.

Cameroon_S2893_5

In the isolated region of far western Cameroon, village women could see that their children were getting sick too often. They would break bones easily, had discoloured teeth, and the distended round bellies that indicated malnutrition. “Almost everyone in the village was malnourished,” said a visitor conducting assessments. It wasn’t until an NGO began to run education programmes in their district, especially for mothers and grandmothers in the community, that the women realised the diet they were feeding their families – almost completely consisting of carbohydrates – could be making them sick.

Women cooking class“It was not that they did not have the food needed for a healthy diet,” one NGO staff member told us, “but that they did not know how to go about it.” After running seminars on food and nutrition (left), they saw the women eagerly learn what kinds of proteins and vegetables would give their children a balanced, healthy diet. Now, families in these Cameroonian villages grow beans and smoke fish to eat with their plantains and grind peanuts into paste for a nutritious, protein rich food, even growing enough to sell at market. It’s basic knowledge that has revolutionised the health of the community, meaning less sickness, fewer children dying early, and women better empowered to take care of their families.

These nutritional seminars, which have reached more than 800 families, and counting, are just one of the transformative programmes run by the NGO. They teach communities to keep bees for honey, they help with the basic needs of orphans and vulnerable children, and they give regular radio broadcasts educating people about HIV/Aids, and more.

They have now asked Crossroads for a shipment that will help them reach out to more people in western Cameroon. “Our offices are inadequately equipped,” they write. They need office furniture and computers, school furniture and clothes to help community children, and other goods. “98% of this area is cut off from anywhere else,” they told us. There is no road at all leading to much of the region.

We’re excited to be bringing this shipment together to support their work in isolated communities that is, literally, transforming and saving lives.

Sponsor a shipment

Crossroads is looking for sponsors for upcoming international shipments like this one! Email partnerships@crossroads.org.hk for a list of projects needing your help.

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Donate to a shipment like this one.

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Cameroon Snapshot

Population: 22.25 million

Capital: Yaoundé

Cameroon is in the west Central Africa region, with natural features including beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas.

Although the country as a whole has improved standards of literacy and healthcare, there is still a long way to go. Less than half of children go on to secondary education, and over 40% are involved in some kind of child labour. In rural areas, less than half the population has access to clean water and sanitation.

Cameroon_S2893_5

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It is late at night, on Cameroon’s dimly lit streets, but young children are hard at work. Some wander the streets, trying to sell bottles of soda or newspapers to passers-by. Others work even longer hours, sold many times a night as prostitutes. It is dangerous work but they are desperate to earn enough money to survive another day.

Crossroads shipped to one Cameroon NGO that is battling this problem. They provide both a source of education for children and a voice for their rights. They believe children should not need to sell either things, or, most certainly, themselves, in order to survive. “They should be in  school!” a representative said in a recent visit to Hong Kong. “One of the principle factors holding young people back is that they don’t get a good education.”

He described parts of the country where entire generations of children go through school without having access to a single schoolbook. “Books cost money,” he said, “and these communities are poor.” When, therefore, Crossroads sent them a large consignment of books for distribution in schools and libraries in rural areas, the response seemed overwhelming. “Whole villages came out at our arrival!” our consignee said, exuberantly. “It was a historic moment for them.”

These books brought an injection of hope into rural Cameroon. There is, of course, a long way to go, but our hope is to see many more such consignments to help education in the country until it is sufficient for the country’s children. The day needs to come, and may it be soon, when they will be rescued from the horrific ‘work’ options they currently face: choices no child should ever have to make.

Give Now!

Donate to a shipment like this one.

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Donate Goods!

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Cameroon Snapshot

Population: 22.25 million

Capital: Yaoundé

Cameroon is in the west Central Africa region, with natural features including beaches, deserts, mountains, rainforests, and savannas.

Although the country as a whole has improved standards of literacy and healthcare, there is still a long way to go. Less than half of children go on to secondary education, and over 40% are involved in some kind of child labour. In rural areas, less than half the population has access to clean water and sanitation.

Cameroon_S2893_5

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