Wisdom Rehabilitation Vocational Centre

Wisdom Rehabilitation Vocational Centre

P.O. Box 5 Bamunka Ndop, N.W Region, Central Africa, Cameroon

E-mail: wisdom05group@hotmail.com.  Tel: 237-7500 9090; Fax: 237-3336 1441.

Background Information.

-         Location of Bamunka and Wisdom Rehabilitation Vocational Centre.

Wisdom Rehabilitation Vocational Centre is located in Bamunka, Ndop central sub

division, the sit of the Ngoketunjia administration of the North West Region of Cameroon.

Bamunka is a lowland plane located some 40 kilometers from Bamenda, the Provincial headquarters of the North West of Cameroon, Central Africa, along the Bamenda - Kumbo ring road. It has a population of over 20 000 inhabitants. It is a semi urban area with both settlers and villagers. They produce crops such as rice both as a cash crop and food crop, cocoyams, cassava, which is grind into garri and other products, groundnuts, corn used for fufu with flour out of the corn/maize. They are also good tapers of raffia and palm wine – a local drink as well as producers of palm oil which is widely used for cooking. A good number of trades or vocational skills are practiced in this low land area which includes carpentry and wood work, domestic electrical installations, sewing and dress making, hair plaiting and saloon work etc. There is also the proliferation of a number of churches ranging from Catholics, Presbyterians, Baptists, to others such as Full Gospel, Seven-day Adventist etc.

Wisdom Rehabilitation Vocational Centre supports the efforts of orphans and destitute

Children through education and providence of self-supporting skills to them when they leave primary school. The centre has been in existence now for four years. Few members came together through the efforts of the village development union to contribute and help the orphans. The village development union was on a sensitization tour of all the quarters in the village. After the tour they realized that they were a good number of orphans abandoned to themselves who were roaming the streets and not going to school due to lack of the means. Because the development union could not do something immediate to care for these orphans, few individuals came together as a group and took up the challenge and started sponsoring some of these children in primary school. The first year we started with seven orphan children.

-         Orphans and destitute children already supporting.

We are already supporting twenty-three (23) orphans to go to Primary School. Primary School in Cameroon is an elementary school that takes children of almost 6 years and above to study elementary education of reading and writing for duration of six years to complete their studies. Formally it was a seven-year duration. The support here include payment of fees and feeding, purchase of uniforms, books and didactics materials and other basic needs for their upkeep.

These children were selected from very poor background, children whose parents died of the HV/AIDs pandemic, destitute, street and vulnerable children etc. We are only able to sponsor them in this elementary education due to financial constraints. Due to the fact that most of them complete Primary school and still roam the streets have made us think of a better way of helping them and that can be felt both by them and the society. One good way is by providing them with some vocational skills which will remain in them and therefore help them with the little education to be able to make a living and in turn help their families and the  centre to be sustainable.   

-         Lack of financial means.

Due to financial constraints, not all of those orphans sponsored in primary school,

particularly orphans and vulnerable groups are able to go on to secondary schools. Most of them roam the streets as if nothing has happened to them. This has made us to think of a different strategy to combat the situation. Even though they have acquired the basic reading and writing skills in education, this seems to be insufficient as it was not helping them directly.

-         The need for a Vocational Centre.

To be able to make the children fill the impact and need of the sponsorship given to them,

we have decided to come up with this Vocational Rehabilitation skills centre. The centre will train children whom we are sponsoring with some basic skills in various trades of their choice when they complete primary school. These trades or skills will therefore make them to be self supporting, independent and be able to make a living and in turn help the centre to be sustainable by contributing a token fee to the centre at a determinable duration during the time they are operating.

We intend to offer vocational skills training in the following fields of specialization:

• Computer Secretariat studies
• Carpentry and woodwork
• Domestic electrical installations
• Sewing and tailoring & dress making
• Hairdressing & plaiting. etc
• Needlework & knitting & embroidering/crocheting.
  
  

-    Number of children to attend the centre.

We intend to admit about twenty five trainees yearly for the various vocational skills for a start. Most of these vocational skills training need a maximum training course duration of twelve months except carpentry and wood work, domestic electrical installations and sewing and tailoring/dress making that will take two years because of its technical nature.

The primary school that exist beside our site is already doing voluntary work with us on a

token amount and the following teachers are handy in the following trades areas:

•  Computer Secretariat studies
•  Hairdressing / plaiting. etc
•  Needlework/knitting & embroidering/crocheting.

A partnership accord will be made with the instructors of the two Government technical

 schools  around us to assist us with the specialized training for a token in carpentry and wood work, domestic electrical installations and sewing and tailoring/dress making until such a time that we may need to recruit our own permanent teachers for the centre and in turn acquire our own training material and equipment.

          -        The choice of the training topics/options.

            These training topics were decided upon because there is a need for them around the vicinity. A good number of houses have been constructed in this semi urban area and electricity power supply has just been installed in the division which was not formally there. So many houses now will need electricity to be installed in their homes. So the domestic electrical installations will have a very high demand in terms of needs. They will actually be necessary and therefore highly needed. So the training of employees in this domain is imperative.

            Also, with the coming of electricity, such facilities as internet, computer documentations etc will start coming up so the need for Computer Secretariat studies in this centre. They will also need to decorate their homes now that there is electricity with needlework, knitting and embroidering/crocheting items on their chairs, furniture etc. Hairdressing and saloons will then be set up in their numbers as they depend solely on electricity. Hence many of the trainees from the centre will be recruited by these hairdressing/plaiting saloons. The centre will therefore assist in setting up these trades for their trainees to make them self-supporting and in turn they will help the centre to be sustainable.

-         Location of the Centre.

The centre is located in the semi urban centre of Bamunka at Meunjong Quarter about

200 metres off the tarred road after Atlanta Complex at long street Bamunka. The centre is under construction but will need some assistance to be fully completed as well as some training equipments such as desks, computers, furniture, tables, chairs, cupboards, to name but these.

-    Continuity/sustainability of the Centre.

 The trainees that the centre will set up workshops for them will be expected, after the first year of operation,  to contribute a token fee back to the centre to keep the centre going. This fee will have to be determined.  An undertaken will therefore be signed with all the trainees to make sure this clause is respected. A committee will also be set in place to determine the conditions surrounding the payment – how it will be paid, when it should be paid and how much is to be paid etc. this committee wil be charged with the supervision of the trainees who are settled and are already making a living or working.

-         Potential risks / Assumptions

 As member of this community, I am fully aware that some trainees will not fully respect the stipulated terms of the agreement, so a committee will be set up to follow the activities of all the trainees when they are out of the centre and a workshop have been set up for them. This committee will make sure that the terms of the agreement with the centre are respected especially in terms of paying back their quotas to the centre to keep the centre going. Thanks

Some Photographs of the centre under construction can be seen below:

The Foundation of the centre under construction

Wisdom Rehabilitation centre under construction – Construction of the foundation

Photograph of Material at the site of the Rehabilitation Centre under construction

Wisdom Rehabilitation centre almost at the roof level --front view

Wisdom Rehabilitation centre under construction almost at roof level – Right view

Proposed Budget for one year for Wisdom Rehabilitation Vocational Centre

(1US $ = 500 F.CFA)

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