Dick Gordon of North Carolina Public Radio hosts a show called The Story and has done a piece on Dr. Georges Bwelle!!!
Click for more, the story, download mp3 …
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Ascovime’s newest initiative, Project Education is an effort to provide children in Cameroon with birth certificates so that they can go to school.
Professor Boukar handing out birth certificates
ASCOVIME recently traveled to Cameroon’s most destitute region, l’Extreme-Nord, or Far North. The poverty in this area is astounding; most families live on less than $0.50 a day and survive the driest months on nothing more than a few handfuls of corn each evening. One of the region’s greatest problems is access to education. Roughly 30% of children there have no birth certificate, and according to Cameroonian law, this means they cannot take the entry exam for high school.
Instead, they are typically limited to the 6th grade and a life of hard labor.
ASCOVIME has been able to make a small step to change that. Each boy or girl needs $19 to cover the four steps that produce a birth certificate. These steps are:
- A doctor determines the child’s age and parents
- A judge makes those findings official
- 2 passport photos are provided
- The mayor prints the actual document
Dr. Bwelle handing a birth certificate to a young boy.
Just this past November, ASCOVIME, led by Dr. Georges Bwelle was able to provide 274 children with birth certificates thanks to your generosity. However, the work is not done. There are still over 4000 children that need certificates, and even small donations will get them there.
For just $5, you can make the difference in a boy or girl’s life. That’s the price of a coffee or a meal. For $19, you can cover the entire cost of one child and singlehandedly give them a new future.
Will you help us? Click here to donate.
Every ASCOVIME member works as a volunteer, so every dollar you give goes directly to a child. ASCOVIME is a registered charity in Vermont, making your donations tax-deductible.
Anselme Djeukam
, who is a daily volunteer with Ascovime on the ground in Cameroon, has just published another delightful children’s book. Anselme writes and illustrates children’s books in French in the back room of his small house in Yaounde, Cameroon which are then sold by Harmattan books all over the world! The books are beautifully written and illustrated and would make a fantastic addition to any personal collection.
In keeping with full disclosure, Harmattan books (and I’m sure other publishers as well) essentially rip off African authors when offering book contracts. Typically, the authors receive a small flat fee, often a couple hundred dollars, for the full rights to their books and see no royalties whatsoever. The publishers then go off and make huge profits as a result.
Despite the financials, Mr. Djeukam’s books are terrific and perhaps someone will one day offer him a reasonable contract as they would for European or North American authors.
And the perfect time to be thinking about our newest program, Project Education. As many of us gear up for another year of High School, College, Grad School or prepare our children for a new year of learning, most of us think of school as a necessary evil. Few consider it a luxury, but to a child in Africa, getting a proper education is often too much to hope for. This is something we are working to change and you can help! Along with better education comes better opportunities for these kids and not just in the form of a higher paying job, it means better opportunities for their whole village and ultimately, their whole country. Statistics show that investing in education is the key to economic development and a stable economy leads to a higher quality of life. So next time you are out shopping for books, pencils and calculators, please consider sponsoring a child so that they too can have the education that they deserve.
For those of you who don’t know me (I’m guessing everyone!) my name is Chantal Mendes and I wanted to introduce myself as I am just starting to get involved with this project on the multimedia end. A little bit about me: I graduated in 2010 with a B.S. in Print Journalism from Boston University and have had experience working for newspapers, blogs, and grant projects with USAID. I’m currently taking classes at Harvard to satisfy my pre-med requirements so that I can apply to medical school next year. In between studying and trying to have a life outside of Chemistry, I am hoping to use my experience with social media to reach out and get more people involved with this amazing project so definitely expect to be hearing a lot more from me over the next few weeks!
-Chantal
PS I’m hoping to make a blog post every week to keep you all updated on what’s going on as well as let you know what you can do to help/get involved yourselves. Even something as simple as visiting our Facebook page (coming soon!) is greatly appreciated. A little bit of effort really does go a long way in making a difference.
Today, Ascovime has achieved two major milestones with one big donation: 100 donors and over $5000 raised. This is a nice goal and is a testament to the grassroots nature of this small organization. Everyone out there is chipping in a little bit and helping get much needed healthcare and educational supplies to those in rural parts of Cameroon.
While these goals are encouraging, much more is needed to pay for medications, a vehicle, school supplies, and now birth certificates. Approximately 500 children in the north of Cameroon will not be able to attend high school because they don’t have birth certificates. However, there is something that you can do. $19 will pay for the whole process to get them one and allow them to enter high school and eventually university.
Read more about Project Education and please forward this to three or 10 friends so that some kids might have a shot at a real future. I
More links:
Ascovime on National Public Radio
Video: Ascovime on the ground in Africa
Photos from Maboye, Cameroon Mission
Thanks!
The mission of Ascovime is to provide rural populations in Cameroon with healthcare and educational supplies, all free of charge. Ascovime functions to achieve this goal in a rather unique way compared to other humanitarian organizations – all members contribute on a volunteer basis, so all the money raised goes directly to those who really need it. With this model comes the need for great grassroots efforts from all over the world.
Cool Students in Yaounde
One such project has been that of Dawn Hansen, a first grade teacher at the American School of Yaounde who is originally from Wisconsin. In just a few weeks, she has crafted over a hundred “Cameroonian Coolers,” bandanas filled with crystals that can absorb and retain cool water, thus keeping one cool in the hot African sun. Dawn’s has lasted for over 10 years! At the moment, this great effort has raised almost $500 and counting!
Here’s where you can support Ascovime through a donation.
If you’re wondering how Ascovime does its work on the ground, this video pretty well encapsulates it. The scenery, music, makeshift equipment and transport, and a jovial attitude are all represented in this fine work. Credit to TristanChampion for putting this video together.
For those of you that understand French out there, here is a nice little slideshow that was put together by the folks in Paris. They are the original Ascovime and have been working diligently throughout the years to support the medical teams on the ground in Cameroon. Check out the slideshow!
Right about now, there is a plethora of bright-eyed, bushy-tailed graduating seniors on college campuses everywhere. However, as they all slowly return from the four-year stupor in which they became experts of herbal experimentation and yeast-based inebriation, the realization will come that the $100,000 in debt needs to be paid off somehow, and soon. Perhaps it wasn’t the best decision, see alternatives.
New York Times Bestseller
What this means for most is finding an arrangement where you exchange your services for money, most typically a job. At this time last year, I was in this boat for the most-part, and I had little idea how bad the job market was outside of my collegiate bubble. So after about 4-months of grueling job hunting, basically that was my full-time job, I eventually got an offer that I was happy with. Yet, I would say I was pretty lucky, many of my classmates weren’t as fortunate.
While I was on the hunt, I documented the process: successful and unsuccessful techniques, interviewing, cold-calling, and using LinkedIn. I’m constantly skeptical of any of these so-called “social media” sites, but much to my surprise, LinkedIn was what ended up getting me a job. So, naturally I decided to share my methods so that more graduates can get some straight advice from someone who’s gone through the process of finding a first job. The book is called LinkedIn Distilled: A Recent Graduate’s Guide to Landing an Entry-Level Job and can be found on Amazon. It’s short, uses simple language, has lots of diagrams, and is available for Kindle, PC, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and iPad. Check out the reviews, enjoy and be sure to write a quick review too!
Exploitation of the poor is a long standing tradition among empires throughout history. From the Roman empire to that of Imperial Japan prior to World War II, killing and enslaving peoples in order to steal natural resources has been common practice. And today is no different.
The American empire, built of collusion between the military, corporations, government, banks, and intelligence agencies, has managed to do the same as many empires of the past. In the 1960s and 70s, our America was responsible for several assassinations as well as other orchestrated coups in order to install leaders that would be receptive to our interests in the region. Today, we do this in the Middle East and Africa, with Cameroon being no exception.
Back in 2000, a corporate coalition led by Exxon Mobil started a project to build an oil pipeline from southern Chad through Cameroon to the Atlantic Ocean. This western-financed project was met with resistance from the native people of both countries and was surrounded with all sorts of controversy. Never-the-less, the pipeline project was completed and the banks and oil companies made off with the cash, the elites of Cameroon and Chad became more wealthy, and the citizens footed the bill.
For more about the history of American empire-building, read John Perkins‘ books Confessions of an Economic Hitman and The Secret History of the American Empire.
