Partnership: Das Welt Auto supports the installation of solar panels in our centres

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Thanks to its support and its USD17,691 donation, Das Welt Auto has enabled Serge Betsen Academy to install solar panels at its Bafia and Bangangté centres. Local firm Hias Consulting carried out the work.

We now have 10 panels in Bangangté and 6 in Bafia. These supply the centres and make up for the events of supply reduction on the grid, as happens only too often unfortunately in these towns of Cameroon.

All our children and young adults can therefore work, study and learn thanks to our computers and the centres’ lights after nightfall, which is around 6pm year-round in this part of the world.

Thanks again to Das Welt Auto for making the tutoring sessions so much more comfortable for our students.

 

Bafia Centre

Bâtiment Centre Bafia  Bâtiment Centre Bafia with light

  Christmas and New Year Party at the Bafia Center with light  Board with light

Bangangté Centre

Building Bagangté Center  Bangangté center at night with light

Lights  Families inside the Bangangté center

Cameroon: A generous donation of corns from RAFAMI

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A big thanks to Elisabeth Seyi and the women of RAFAMI for their 5 kilos donation of corn to distribute.

Thanks to these hard working and generous women, 350 meals have been served in the Bafia centre in October and November 2019!

The RAFAMI is the coalition of Women’s Associations for Agriculture, farming and fishery in the Mbam and Inoubou departments, which was created by Elisabeth in 2009.

They also donated 50 kilos of corn seeds, which went to Bangangté for our women cooperative and will soon be planted.

   

   

Cameroon : Donations needed to run a deworming and anti-malaria campaign!

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The SBA carries on growing and after setting up the education pole in Zoétélé, it is the health pole that is born at the end of the year with the presence of a nurse once a week in the centre. In this town in the middle of the bush, it is not rare to find pests and mosquitoes that transmit malaria. After only a month of consultations, the nurse asserted that it was necessary to organize a deworming and anti-malarial treatment campaign. For this we need your help as we need US$335 to conduct exams for the 25 children of the center. So you will enable them to study in good health!

We would like to thank Guillaume who donated some money and would like to ask our other generous friends to follow his path.

Contact us via contact@sergebetsenacademy.org to find out more and make a donation of any amount to help us here.

Cameroon : Collaboration with the Jean Félicien Gacha Foundation on rugby

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In the midst of the Rugby World Cup, the cultural department of the Jean Félicien Gacha foundation showed the movie Invictus, in presence of the rugbymen of the SBA Bangangté centre. After the movie, in order to stay in the theme of Africa and Rugby, a rugby initiation class was offered to the public by the Serge Betsen Academy.
The pouring rain did not undermine the fighting spirit of the SBA rugbymen… After the projection of Invictus, the players recreated the game… and the historical logic was respected: 27 to 17 for South Africa (in blue) against New Zealand… A word from the foundation: “Congratulations to all on this big first for the foundation and the lesson in sportiness it taught us, confirming the belief that ‘Football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, and rugby is a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen”.
Thank you for the invitation!

 

 
Rugby initiation at the Gacha Foundation

Cameroon: Donation from BIC!

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Thanks to the generosity of the BIC group, our children have enough blue and red pens for the whole year!

The perfect tool for their academic success is in their hands.

Thank you BIC for helping our children to study in good study conditions!

Cameroon: Visit of the Jean-Félicien Gacha Foundation

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In October, Jenna, our Project Manager and Djibril, the Manager of the Eau Claire Center visited the Jean-Félicien Gacha Foundation. They had an interesting and constructive discussion with the staff of the foundation.

We are proud to collaborate with this beautiful Foundation whose values ​are ​close to ours on the occasion of Philippe’s bamboo and pearl objects training. And we hope we will collaborate again soon on other projects.

Some books have been donated by the foundation to our children and we feel grateful for that.

Cameroon: Setting up the Zoétélé infirmary

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After opening the education pole at the Zoétélé centre at the beginning of the school year 2018, we met a nurse in Zoétélé, who had decided to volunteer and provide consultations to the children from the centre once a week.

In line with what we already set up in Bangangté and Bafia, the centre of Zoétélé will now be operational on our triple focus: Education, Health and Rugby.

We are extremely proud of this achievement! It’s amazing to see the SBA growing!

Cameroon: Charities fair 2019

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Thanks to Nadege, the Manager of the Jardin Eden Centre for representing us at the charities fair on Saturday at the AMT Club, which was organised by the Français du monde-adfe.

The Serge Betsen Academy (SBA) proudly confirms that 5000 young people from underprivileged areas have been welcomed in our centres for the past 15 years and have benefited from school support and health care, the majority of which have also practiced rugby.

It was a pleasure to discuss with our guests and an honor to see H.E. Christophe Guilhou from France back in Cameroon!

Nadège at the fair  The French Ambassador at our stand

 The SBA stand

Cameroon: Visit of the new Ambassador of France to Cameroon

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Jenna, our consultant, went to Cameroon late September to work with the managers of our centres: Abaa, Nadège, Jean-Cyrille and Djibrail. She can happily attest that the work methods implemented for the past two years have given each manager more autonomy and more space to propose new initiatives in order to propose new projects to the SBA board as well as to voice the urgent and long term needs of our centres.

Her trip took place at the same time as H.E Christophe Guilhou, the new Ambassador of France to Cameroon, took office. We took this opportunity to invite him to visit our Jardin Eden Centre in Yaounde, during our Friday afternoon activities, which included rugby initiation. Jenna and Nadège presented to him the different activities of the centre and more broadly of the Association in Cameroon as well as abroad.

The Ambassador of France with our SBA children  Children of the Jardin Eden centre

The Ambassador of France with our SBA team  The Ambassador of France with our SBA children

Cameroon: Renovation of the Netah nursery school, allowing for 40% more students

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Thanks to the generosity of our donors and the support of the Wasps Legends Charitable Foundation, Netah’s preschool is looking great. The school has indeed been renovated and sanitary facilities have been installed in order to accommodate a total of 60 children in better conditions.

This school was built by parents which is quite common in Cameroon. As the budget allocated to the national education is not sufficient, the children of our centre had no space in the nursery school.

In January 2019, the SBA board announced the implementation of these works, carried out thanks to the 9 million CFA Francs (= 13,725 Euros) collected for this purpose. Serge Betsen, Odile Prévot and Sébastien Lovy were filled with joy when they announced the news to teachers and parents during their trip. One of the objectives of the Serge Betsen Academy (SBA) is, as you know, to facilitate access to education for the children of our centres and their classmates.

Netah avant les travaux

In February 2019, Atelewa, a construction company in Cameroon, began the work to allow the school to welcome new children in better conditions as from the start of the 2019-2020 school year.

Netah travaux en cours en février 2019 école de Nétah rénovée avec sanitaires

In September 2019, the children returned to school in a new, well-equipped building. It is a source of enormous satisfaction for the SBA to see these children studying in such good condition.

Djibril, the manager of the Eau Claire centre in Bangangté, also visits the school from time to time to talk to the head teacher and the children. During one of his visits, he made the most of it and coached a rugby session. It’s always moving to see such small children trying their hand at rugby! And for some of them, it was the very first time they saw an oval ball!

We wish these children great learning and more than anything a bright future, and we would like to thank the Wasps Legends Charitable Foundation and our donors for their fabulous generosity allowing these children to grow up and dream of a promising professional future.

 

Translation : Katy Birgé-Wilson