Our last rural visit took us to Njinikom, a small rural village perched on a lush green hill, one hour north of Bamenda. As we had done for our previous rural visits, Emmanuel, Helah and I boarded a two-door vehicle –called ‘motto’ by Cameroonians– and started our day-trip in the early morning. However, that day was scheduled to be clean-up and manual work day in Bamenda meaning that taxis could only start loading their passengers after 11am.We and the 5 other people jam-packed inside the taxi took a back road to avoid being controlled by the local police. Throughout our stay in Bamenda, I have noted that most Cameroonian police and army officers are francophone. From my personal observation, the francophone Cameroonians maintain a dominant relationship towards the anglophone Cameroonians. The Cameroonian government is undoubtedly taking some preventive measures in order to curtail any type of dissent from the anglophone opposition by ensuring that the Northwest Province is under tight control. Not before long, we were stopped by one of those ‘routiers’ who gave our taxi driver a difficult time. But this was quickly resolved by a bribe disbursed to this enforcement officer.

Njinikom Landscape

Njinikom Landscape

In Njinikom, we were kindly welcomed by a couple of women who participated in the HIV/AIDS training and soon after proceeded with a focus group session including women’s group representatives, ‘second-class’ local chiefs and teachers. To meet one of our deliverables for Nkumu Fed Fed –which consist of carrying out a participatory evaluation of the HIV/AIDS campaign– we are conducting focus groups and one-to-one interviews with key stakeholders who are asked to share their experiences and potential recommendations to improve future interventions. The participants expressed their concern about some of the hardest cultural practices to change: they identified widow inheritance practices as the most difficult cultural practice to modify; most participants raised some concerns about the treatment of People Living With Aids (PLWA) who are still heavily stigmatized by their community; additionally, children whose parents have died of AIDS are often marginalized within their communities.

'Second-class' traditional chief

'Second-class' traditional chief

Various key recommendations emanated from our discussions. First, a key target group seems to have been missed by the HIV/AIDS initiative: the youth. One of the teachers explained that discussing safe sex practices constitute a great challenge for parents and youths alike. Sex talk is still very taboo in rural communities. As such, developing strategies to encourage the youth to participate in the HIV/AIDS campaign and provide trainings to parents so that they can engage with their children about safe sexual practices are key initiatives for the continuation of this project. Second, various participants expressed the need for a better follow-up both in terms of providing trainers with outreach materials and conducting additional trainings to consolidate trainers’ knowledge. Finally a feedback loop should be put in place to ensure that trainers and community members have the opportunity to ask questions to Nkumu Fed Fed lead-trainers.

Njinikom Women's Group

Njinikom Women's Group

Throughout our discussion about HIV/AIDS prevention, various participants seemed uneasy about “preaching” the usage of condoms. One woman explained that abstinence is the best prevention measures against the spread of HIV/AIDS. Probably seeing the surprised look on my face, Emmanuel whispered in my ear that the inhabitants of Njinikom are dedicated Christians; as such, condom usage is only acceptable as a last resort. The tensions between religion and the HIV/AIDS campaign highlighted the complexity of it all. The people we met in Njinikom have an incredible leverage and can really influence their community’s actions and worldviews. Nonetheless, they are appropriating the HIV/AIDS campaign and making it fit their religious values. So how do you carry out an effective HIV/AIDS campaign while sustaining alliances with key community members whose worldviews are rooted in certain religious beliefs? Like anything in the development world, this too will take incremental changes.

Leaving Njinikom

Leaving Njinikom

Prior to departing for our first visit to a rural community, Emmanuel Ngang –our colleague from Nkumu Fed Fed– organized a meeting with the communication officer from the Baptist center located in Bamenda, Emmanuel Bah Tokoh. Mr. Tokoh participated in Nkumu Fed Fed training addressing the intersection of HIV/AIDS and harmful cultural practices and has been spreading his knowledge ever since. He welcomed us in his small office adorned by a poster of the Lions taped on the back wall and a significant pile of folders resting on top of his desk. “HIV/AIDS is a real pandemic in the Northwest region; we have the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in all of Cameroon.” explained Mr. Tokoh. To address the pervasiveness of AIDS in the region, the Baptist church started sensitizing the surrounding communities –though in an informal manner– prior to Nkumu Fed Fed training but as Mr. Tokoh explains they lacked the knowledge and the tool to make a significant and long-lasting impact. In fact, the training enabled the participants to be more articulate and specific when outreaching to the local communities. Additionally, the Baptist church preliminary approach was confrontational, especially towards the local chiefs; however, Mr. Tokoh knew that they had to change their approach and create alliances with local chiefs instead.

While harmful cultural practices have reduced, entrenched pockets of resistance within the rural areas persist. Moreover, one of the Baptist church’s key tool to disseminate the information is the radio; however, its radio programming does not cover a large enough area to reach the remote communities within the region. To enhance the impact of the HIV/AIDS campaign, Mr. Tokoh recommended the implementation of public outreach program/sensitization activities inclusive of all community members. Increasing men’s buy-in process is vital. Finally, local trainers’ knowledge must be reinforced through additional seminars to enable the development of indigenous initiative to curve the spread of HIV/AIDS.

Media Outreach: NFF Advocacy

Around 3pm, Helah, Emmanuel Ngang and myself boarded a two-door vehicle to reach Kumbo, a small town located east of Bamenda where we would spend the night before meeting a group of women in Tatum, a small rural village in the Nkum regional division. The road we embarked on, called the Ring Road, is described as a ‘must-see’ in our tourist guide. Indeed, from the undulating volcanic mountains to the rice paddy fields the sceneries are breathtaking. On the side of the road, you can spot an elderly woman carrying a sheer amount of firewood on her head or perhaps a smiling boy walking barefoot carrying a basket of peanuts. After a 3 hours trek, we arrived in Kumbo where pouring rain welcomed us. Half-soaked, we checked-in into a cheap and decrepit hotel. After sharing a delicious tomato omelet cooked in firewood pot, Emmanuel reminisced on how he was able to go to university and work in development project today. Emmanuel, originally from the Southwest Province, comes from a very humble background where sending children to school was an unaffordable luxury. As a young man, he crossed path with a Dutch stagiaire who gave me enough money -200,000 CFA or the equivalent of $400- to put himself through school for the years to come. “This man changed my life and changed the status of my family. Thanks to him I was able to get a good job and send my siblings to school,” Emmanuel explained. This Dutch stagiaire knew that investing in the education of this young Cameroonian man would have a multiplier effect, not only benefiting Emmanuel but his entire family. As the night passed by, we shared our ideas about the consequences of poor national management, the impact of Françafrique as well as the increasing presence of American multinationals in Cameroon. Though Emmanuel’s concern echoed some of the worries expressed by our colleagues from the AMA women project in Douala, the disinvestment in the Anglophone region is incredibly palpable. As I have mentioned in a previous blog, the Northwest province is the bastion of resistance against the current government. In fact, this is where the first march for multi-pluralism was organized a couple of decades ago. Furthermore, while most of the petroleum is extracted in the Northwest region, not a dime is going to the local population since most of the management is francophone. This division between the Anglophone and Francophone sections of Cameroon is another challenge that the upcoming generation of political activists will have to tackle.

Road from Kumbo to Bamenda

The main objective of our visit to Tatum was to meet some of the rural women who have received the training on HIV/AIDS and who have themselves become trainers in their rural communities.. Here, it is important to distinguish beneficiaries from rights claimants. Too often, the beneficiaries in the developing world are perceived as passive recipients of international aid. In contrast, rights-claimants are directly involved in the fight for the respect of their human rights and play a vital role in disseminating knowledge. The women from Tatum are certainly rights-claimants.

As we arrived in Tatum, the assistant-mayor of the Nkum council, who organized the meeting with the Tatum women, warmly welcomed us. He underlined some the key cultural practices that contributed to the spread of HIV/AIDS such as widowhood practices and cultural jamborees. He underlined that sensitization is an incremental process but that tangible outcome are already being seen: people are more open to do check-ups before marriage and widows are refusing the inheritance practices. As Mr. Tokoh had emphasized the previous day, the assistant mayor explained that outreaching to remote communities where cultural practices are especially embedded poses one of the greatest challenges.

Women of Tatum

After this brief interview with the assistant mayor, we installed a couple of chairs in one of the bigger room of the Nkum council and invited the three Tatum women for our focus group. While slightly shy at first, the three women soon became more comfortable with us and started opening up about their experiences as trainers and some of the challenges they face in their communities. One of the women explained that the prevalence of alcoholism in her community is a catalyst for unsafe sexual practices leading to the spread of HIV/AIDS. She explained that People Living With AIDS (PLWA) are stigmatized by their families and isolated from the community as whole. Another Tatum woman raised a question about “traditional AIDS.” Effectively, one of the traditional leader has spread the word about the danger of getting “traditional AIDS” if a community members. This misinformation serves the purpose of moralizing community members is extremely dangerous for a plethora of reasons. Effectively, telling people that they have “traditional AIDS” hinders them from knowing the real causes of their diseases and changing their sexual practices; also it hinders people from seeking the appropriate medical treatment. We were able to discuss this issue and clarify some of the doubts regarding “traditional AIDS” expressed by the Tatum women.

We were later joined by a fourth local woman trainer, Aja Salamatou, who shared her experience as a member of a polygamous family. These four women expressed some of the challenges they face as trainers: first, people often expect that they will be given medication to ‘cure’ AIDS by the trainers, consequently they are often disappointed when they learn that this is not a health campaign; second, men have been antagonized by the fact that it is women who are taking the lead in curbing the spread of HIV/AIDS and would rather receive training from men rather than women about safe sexual practices; finally, the women expressed that within the Fulani culture, forced marriage is one of the hardest practices to curve and young girls are forced to accept the marriage due to community pressure. The women shared some very important recommendations that could enhance the impact of the HIV/AIDS campaign such as bringing more people to partake in general meetings about harmful cultural practices, include more men as trainers to outreach to the male population in their communities, have access to more visual aids and translate the material in the local languages. The Tatum’s women recommendations will be included as lessons learned and recommendations in our preliminary evaluation of the project. Effectively, their expertise is essential for the advancement of Nkumu Fed Fed HIV/AIDS project.

Fulani Women from Tatum

Le Cameroun est un pays majestueux! Though it took us close to 6 hours and a very bumpy ride to reach the Northwest Province of Cameroon from Douala, I could not stop myself from staring at the lush vegetation which complements the redness of the clay… the fiery earth. From fruits and vegetables to wood and petroleum, Cameroon has a plethora of resources; nonetheless, the majority of Cameroonian live in abject poverty. What mismanagement from the local authority and obstructionist policies from international powers! Each time the bus came to a stop at the local villages, children would come running towards the bus with buckets of roasted prunes, nuts, bananas and okras sticks in the hope that a hungry traveler might by them a snack. Cameroonian children represent the future of this country; that is why ensuring their well-being and investing in their education is vital.

Road from Kumbo to Bamenda

Paysage du Cameroun

Nkumu Fed Fed, Vital Voices partner organization in Bali, tirelessly works on behalf of Cameroonian children. This organization, which started out as a network of Bali women in the 1980s, has four major program areas: Gender and the Rights of the Child, Education, Health & HIV/AIDS, Secure Livelihoods and the Environment. As AP/Vital Voices fellows, our role is to document and evaluate the HIV/AIDS advocacy campaign, sponsored by a Vital Voices grant. Nkumu Fed Fed’s HIV/AIDS campaign has focused on creating awareness about harmful cultural practices, which facilitate the spread of HIV/AIDS. One of the local doctor in Bali gave us an overview of some of those harmful traditional practices: the practice of polygamy, which can entail traditional leader acquiring a third or fourth wife, the latter must preferably be a virgin; widowhood practices where a widow is forced to marry her brother-in-law; cultural jamborees –throughout the year, married people are allowed to have intimate relationships with past lovers without being sanctioned by their communities. Additionally, various problems that are not of cultural nature also play a decisive role in the spread of HIV/AIDS. They include older men praying on little girls; promising them 10,000 CFA ($20) if they sleep them; the overall lack of condom usage, and the overuse of unsanitary blades to cut someone’s hair for example.

Nkumu Fed Fed Rehabilitation Centre

Nkumu Fed Fed Rehabilitation Centre

Nkumy Fed Fed’s strategy to curtail those harmful cultural practices has essentially been a ‘train the trainers’ approach. Key stakeholders –including traditional leaders (called Fons), women’s groups leaders, and local political actors­– were invited to Nkumu Fed Fed multipurpose center to partake in a general training about the intersection of HIV/AIDS and cultural practices. Those trainees went back to their communities and trained the local people. This strategy seems to have been especially effective because some of the rural areas are very remote and hard to reach place for Nkumu Fed Fed staff.

Fon - Traditional Leader of Bali

Fon - Traditional Leader of Bali

Since our arrival in Bali, Helah and I had the privilege to meet two Fons and a local women’s group in Bamenda. Reaching out to and involving traditional leaders, who are the custodian of culture, is a key development strategy to ensure the sustainibility of the HIV/AIDS campaign. Those two Fons were undeniably well educated and progressive. They expressed their commitment to educating their constituency about the harmful cultural practices, understanding that the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS is the fight they have to adopt. While it is expected that Fons will ‘acquire’ many wives as a demonstration of power, the Fon of Bu with whom we met is one of the only Fons in the region who is monogamous. Taking a stand –even as Fon– can trigger various criticisms by other Fons and constituencies. As such, creating a consensus about health sexual practices among the Fons will be a challenge for the upcoming years.

After a visit with the Fons, we met with a group of women called Global Education and Environmental Development (GEED), which also focuses on the rights of the girl child and the empowerment of women in rural areas. One of the GEED members, Clotilda Ansiensa, who has a soft spot for women, also became a trainer for Nkumu Fed Fed. According to Clothilda, the greatest obstacle to eradicating HIV/AIDS in her community is the reality that women are very poor and uneducated. Often, a woman’s only alternative is to become economically dependent and concede to unsafe sex practices. Clothilda emphasized that the HIV/AIDS campaign must be accompanied by women’s economic empowerment. A woman who is economically empowered will be in a much better position to negotiate safe sex and make informed decisions about her future.

Meeting with GEED

Meeting with GEED

For the next two weeks, we will be traveling to rural communities to meet some of the local trainees… the last mile. What does the last mile look like? That is what I kept on asking myself during one of my development classes. For me, reaching the last mile is meeting that woman in one of the remote villages, sitting with her, discussing her experience as a trainer, providing her with all the tools and knowledge necessary to succeed in eradicating harmful cultural practices and support her efforts in the long-term.