The beneficiaries of the Girls Resilience Opportunities and Wellbeing (GROW) project were all smiles, excited, and bustling at the end of the Project event held on the 10th of November 2023 at Hapal Conference Hall in Kumba.
The project funded by Together Women Rise in partnership with Street Child Cameroon targeted 120 adolescent girls and teenage mothers whose living conditions have been made precarious by the ongoing socio-political Crisis. These young girls have been severely affected and exposed to protection issues like rape, GBV, early marriage, and loss of livelihood opportunities, pushing them to resort to illicit acts like commercial sex just to be able to afford basic daily needs. Once they get pregnant, returning to school becomes difficult as well as assessing opportunities to generate income beyond the subsistence level, further leaving them entangled in the clutches of poverty.
Through the GROW project, these 120 girls were engaged in 5months of an intensive accelerated learning program which was aimed at improving their literacy, numeracy, PSS, and life skills. July- October 2023, the girls went through rigorous vocational training on food and chemical transformation. At the end of the project, they were able to make things like Javel water, body cream, Savon, peanuts, cakes, milk sweet, etc.
During the closing ceremony, which was graced by the presence of the Divisional Delegate of MINPROFF, Women Empowerment and the Family Centre, Employment and Vocational Training, Representative from INGOs like Caritas and IRC, Community Stakeholders, staff and administrators from AMEF, 96 project beneficiaries received seed-up capital in the form of raw materials to enable them start-up small scale businesses to boost their income.
Activities of the day included appreciation speeches from participants, demonstration of skill acquisition, quiz competition, display of exhibition stand, and award of certificates.
At the end of the day, The President and founder of AMEF, Dr. Margaret Niger-Thomas made the following remarks about the project. “It was a successful venture and the finished products by the beneficiaries as demonstrated in the picture above reveal that knowledge was acquired and capacity building took place. The impact is great in the lives of this vulnerable class of people (teenage/adolescent girls caught in the web of the socio-political crisis). Many had lost hope but with the GROW project, some have regained hope and ready to take off.”
