Tag Archive for: SBA Coop

SBA project: Creation of a poultry farm for the SBA COOP!

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The Serge Betsen Academy (SBA) decided to create a poultry farm at the Eau Claire centre in Bangangté, in line with the SBA Coop, our agricultural cooperative of 20 mothers from the centre. This 195m2 farm (with 25m2 of storage) will accommodate around 2000 chickens.

By financing the creation of a henhouse on the land adjoining the Eau Claire centre in Bangangté, you will allow mothers from the centre to be trained in the raising of chickens and to work there. The chickens raised for their meat will be sold at low prices to the SBA for the meals of the children of the centre, or sold directly to the outside world by the mothers of the SBA Elevage cooperative. As for the droppings, they will be given to mothers of the SBA Coop to be used as fertilizer.

As a result, with the sale of these chickens, the mothers will earn an additional salary and will be able to access a certain financial autonomy. This will allow them to spend on any required necessities for the well-being of their children.

The mothers will be trained in chicken farming by the centre manager, Djibril Ngassam. This training and the operating costs will be covered by the French Development Agency (AFD) which supports our project as part of the Academies Program.

We are counting on your support to help the Bangangté centre mothers to gain autonomy.

 

Translation by Katy Birgé-Wilson

Cameroon: Children protected against malaria and parasites!

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This school year, the children of our centres, together with their leaders, have once again benefited from the implementation of anti-malaria and anti-parasite campaigns. Their health being our priority, all the children are also monitored by our nurses and cared for when necessary. Their family members are also welcome in our infirmaries.

Josué, the nurse at the Jardin Eden centre, ordered anti-malaria Rapid Diagnostic Tests (RDTs) and anti-malarial drugs from a laboratory and the boxes were then distributed to the various centres. Each nurse then saw to the implementation of distribution operations during the year in order to best protect our children.

Above, the grateful and happy children of the Jardin Eden centre

At the Jardin Eden centre, Josué, for example, with the tests carried out four anti-malaria screening campaigns during the year. The third malaria screening campaign was carried out at the beginning of May 5, 2022, and all the children present tested negative. Proof that once again the initiative is beneficial and that the anti-malarial treatment is effective.

As for the anti-parasite drugs, they were distributed in all our centres in more than one wave according to the diagnosis established by our nurses. Intestinal parasites are very common in Cameroon and they make our children suffer.

Above, the distribution of anti-parasite drugs

We would like to thank our donors and partners, in particular Ets Pellapore from Bormes-les-Mimosas (France) and our donor Jasmine Ritchie from Washington DC (USA) for their generous donations, as well as La Guilde for their donation Sport & Développement (a la Guilde program supported by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) (AFD)) specially dedicated to the well-being of the children of the centres of Jardin Eden and of Zoétélé. A big thank you for allowing us to care for our children!

To fight against malaria, our moms from the SBA Coop, our agricultural cooperative, have also started producing Artemisia, in addition to corn and beans. In 2020, we approached the Maison de l’Artemisia in Yaoundé in order to understand all the benefits of this plant and to learn about the production of herbal teas. Seven plants were given to Djibril, head of the Eau Claire centre; sadly we lost two. From the remaining 5 plants, Djibril collected 350 grams of seeds so the mothers of the SBA Coop can produce in large quantities. 100 grams were donated to the Zoétélé and Jardin Eden centres to plant in the vegetable gardens. We now have around 30 plants; this year, the SBA Coop mothers’ plant-nursery is on a trial period. Moms and their families will use the herbal teas to help fight malaria. Some will be donated to the centre to make herbal tea for the children, in addition to the anti-malarial drugs. During the second campaign, the mothers of the SBA coop will be able to start marketing part of their production.

Thanks to the donation of Sport & Development, a new order for health cards was placed, to allow individual monitoring of the children.  For the creation of the Jardin Eden and Zoétélé health cards, Josué asked for the support of a graphic designer and a printer.

   

The famous health cards/booklets of Jardin Eden and in third position those of Zoétélé

As for the stocks of medicines in each infirmary, they are regularly renewed thanks to a quarterly budget made available to the nurses. For the first quarter, Josué, the nurse from Jardin Eden and Etoudi, for example, bought anti-flu drugs, considering the period of drought and the cold, dry wind that was blowing in the city of Yaoundé. An emergency fund is also included in our budgets to react quickly to any health concerns of young people and our team on site. It has come in handy more than once this year.

Above, two patients seen to by Mr. Jacques, the nurse at the Eau Claire centre in Bangangté

In order to improve the health of our children, they are monitored regularly and care is provided when they become ill. Nutrition being also an integral part of our health component, meals are offered regularly in all centres. This school year, about 1000 meals are distributed per month in Cameroon.

Above, 2 of the weekly afternoon snacks at Jardin Eden

Before each meal, our children are asked to wash their hands. Our nurses, who are asked to raise awareness of personal hygiene especially during a pandemic regularly remind the children of the basic rules of hygiene.

 

Above, the hand-washing operation at the Zoétélé centre.

 

Translation : Katy Birge-Wilson

 

Cameroon: Help us grow the SBA Coop to the next level!

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Our farming cooperative, the  SBA Coop needs your help to grow to the next level. Empowering its 20 current female members thanks to training is our new priority. Our CEO, Odile Prevot wanted to say a few words about the achievements of the cooperative and our objectives:

“I am so proud of my MOMS in Cameroon!

If a year ago I was telling the world that “Investing in Women is not effing charity”, today I am telling the world that I am glad to share the evidence that the Serge Betsen Academy’s (“SBA”) investment in time, effort and money into the SBA Coop is indeed not effing charity.

In 5 years the SBA Coop tripled its crop production, provided enough extra income for the mothers to finally afford to pay off all their kids expenses, a few of them started a new business, were able to buy lands and more importantly for the SBA itself, they were able to feed the kids of the charity for 18 months!  What about them paying back the micro loans consistently since day one?

We started with 11 Moms in 2017 and we are 20 today! Where will they stop?

SBA Coop is working to empower rural women farmers in Cameroon, providing them with seed funding, oversight and accompanying them… but they need more. They need essential tools for a more sustainable agriculture to ensure growth in changing climates, they need training in modern farming techniques and post-harvest to expand crop growth, they need book-keeping practices to track their associations’ financial status, as well as IT literacy training, or business and marketing building workshops.

If you know anyone who can help the SBA Coop grow to the next level, please reach out to: contact@sergebetsenacademy.org.”

 

SBA Coop

SBA Coop

Cameroon: Our SBA Coop has tripled its crop production

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Four years ago, our CEO, Odile Prevot offered to some mothers of the children we help, the opportunity to create a farming cooperative in Bangangté. She has been closely following their progress, meeting them virtually every month. So far, this cooperative has enabled 17 women to grow their income and has had a positive impact on the lives of their families and the ones of our children. Odile and all the Serge Betsen Academy are very proud of their achievements and their ambitions. She decided to write the following notes to honour these brave women and share with you their success story:

“How creating financial independence for women leads to sustainability?

Back in 2016 while visiting one of our centers in Cameroon, I was sitting in the classroom with a few of the mothers of the children we help. We have known each other for a number of years now and they are always in demand for stories coming from Europe and America.

Whilst seating with one of their babies on my lap, health and education were our main topics of discussion. They explained that, although the duty of the man is to provide a house and cover the main household’s costs, it is up to the mothers to take care of the children and all the costs associated with raising them. However unlike men, their access to financial resources is very limited. One of the mothers, Clotilde, expressed her concern that her working in the fields was not enough to provide for her children’ school fees and other expenses and asked for help as she knew that with the right resources, she could grow more crops and make ends meet.

Other mothers joined in and the discussion became very animated. Realizing it was a common problem, which could become an opportunity if they joined forces, I offered them to consider a cooperative framework, where the mothers would take responsibility over the operations and the management of COOP. The role of the Serge Betsen Academy (SBA) would be to provide oversight and the seed funding at the beginning of the year, and in return the COOP would reimburse the funding 12 months later and share a portion of the crops during the year, in order to help feed the children of the SBA center.

And just like that, the SBA COOP was created, the lawyer in me wanted to create a sustainable structure so I drafted the COOP bylaws following OHADA principles, with 11 mothers as founders with the SBA providing corn and bean seeds funding, producing 450kg of corn and 342kg of beans at year-end.

We are now four years later, the COOP has tripled its crop production, provided enough extra income for the mothers to finally afford to pay all their kids expenses, and in some cases allowing some of the mothers to start new businesses, becoming increasingly financially independent.

This incredible success story has also been very positive for the SBA, which was not only always repaid on time by the COOP, but it helped the center in becoming more sustainable as the COOP now provides enough food to feed more than 130 kids of the SBA center throughout the year, totaling nearly 4000 meals.  

Today this micro-financing scheme, offered to the moms, helps them to deal with emergencies, make critical purchases that they could not otherwise afford and put food on the table in times of scarcity, even start new business ventures! But more than that, they are all empowered to speak out more, they assume leadership roles. When I meet them virtually every month we make sure that SBA COOP is an opportunity to meet formally with all the other moms to discuss problems and develop joint actions.

So proud of our rural women. They are working as hard, or more, as the men next to them with less income and as member of civil society we must use our convening power to build capacity and resilience when assisting women in need.”

Odile Prevot

A meeting of the SBA Coop