Researching On Youths & HIV In Cameroon

Researching On Youths & HIV In Cameroon
Yvonne Bekeny, Development and International Cooperation Researcher on Youths and HIV in Finland arrived Cameroon and decided to take a break before beginning her internship at Cameroon Link in June 2008. This period was summer holiday for schools in Cameroon. Her initial destination for internship was The Gambia, but due to her ill health and surgery she was unable to travel to The Gambia. During her period of bed rest she contacted Cameroon Link Human Development Non-Governmental-Organization by email and telephone to arrange for research on the youths and HIV. Her investigation had to lead to improving HIV/AIDS education in schools in Cameroon and other health development issues. On completion, she acknowledged that her work with Cameroon link gave her an opportunity to see the bigger picture of the connection between health and development not only in the secondary school milieu, but also at the community level.
INTRODUCING CAMEROON LINK
Cameroon Link is a development and humanitarian umbrella NGO based in Douala- Cameroon,`that co-ordinates activities of six Women and Gender AIDS Councils, (COGESID) acronym from its French name legalised by the government within the frame work of a Gender, AIDS and Development Promotion project. Cameroon Link had put in place five Local community AIDS control Committees (CLLS), acronym from its French name) within the assistance framework of the Canadian Co-operation and the National AIDS Control Committee. These eleven community based organisations operate in different health areas of Bonassama District and Cameroon Link co-ordinates the execution, supervision and evaluation of the entire health organisations network.
Cameroon Link is also a member of the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA) and is affiliated to the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) Africa. Its activities fall within the range of Health and Development, social mobilization, gender promotion, women’s reproductive rights advocacy, reduction of maternal and infant mortality, reduction of malnutrition, initiation of socio-economic development empowerment projects through micro-credit promotion activities and media involvement for information, education and communication (IEC).
All these fall within the frame work of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. For eighteen years, Cameroon Link NGO has been serving the community and during this period, it has made its impact felt. It has been able to mobilize the community to create community health centres in the slum areas where health care is meagre and sometimes the inhabitants of these areas are very poor and cannot even afford money to transport the sick to the district hospitals.
In gender, Cameroon Link has been able to organize and train women on gender sensitive approaches to development and self help initiatives and empowerment through the creation of COGECID Women Gender Councils. The gender councils begin women together to discuss women’s rights and work out strategies for the reduction of the spread of HIV in the community and through the centres counselling activities are undertaken to guide against stigmatization. As a member of IBFAN and WABA, its gender sensitization activities have also lead to greater support for breastfeeding mothers and their families with the promotion and protection of exclusive and effective breastfeeding practices as stipulated by, WHA, WHO and UNICEF regulations.
Yvonne Undergoes Induction
The first week of activities was actually an induction period. She was introduced to the activities of Cameroon Link and given a whole lot of documents to familiarize herself with what she came across as she move from one health area to the other. She was introduced to the relationship between HIV and Breastfeeding. James Achanyi-Fontem, CEO of Cameroon Link had just returned from a WABA policy orientation training and workshop in Malaysia. The information packs brought from WABA are very vital, and there is hope these would change the face of breastfeeding among mothers who are HIV positive.
It through these documents that Yvonne Bekeny learnt about the new scientific findings which reveal that exclusive breastfeeding could be done even by mothers who are HIV positive and there are enough recent statistics to show that babies born to HIV positive mothers would be healthier if breastfed exclusively than those who were not breastfed exclusively. During this period, Yvonne Bekeny joined and arranged campaigns to sensitize mothers to this effect with other Cameroon Link partner associations. She participated in working sessions on the rationale of western countries and multinational food processing companies, that insist on formula feeding as opposed to exclusive breastfeeding which in recent years has been encouraged by the WHO and UNICEF. Not only is exclusive breastfeeding healthy for the baby, it is the most practical feeding method for mothers in Africa. It is not only natural, but get the mothers to save money and prevent their babies from common diseases. Considering that an average African woman cannot afford three square meals a day for the whole family, considering the nutrients that breastmilk can offer to the baby, it is only natural that this should be encouraged worldwide and especially in Africa for nutritive, economic, health and other social reasons.
In Cameroon, statistics show that only 24 % of the population has access to pipe borne water and if mothers are to depend on formula feeding they need good water to go with it, yet a bulk of the population does not have access to portable water. We are therefore advocating that formula feeding be discouraged because it is not sustainability, affordable and regularly available.
For many years, the dilemma of HIV positive mothers breastfeeding has been an issue of debate and controversy, but recent research and studies have shown that breastfeeding is the safest option for mothers in developing countries because it is affordable and practical even when the mother is HIV positive.
We have therefore been educating mothers because what they need is the right information, education and counselling on the important and values of breastmilk. During field exercise, Yvonne Bekeny spoke with health practitioners and their major limitation was lack of proper education on the issues addressed, inadequate human resources and lack of capacity building possibilities, to enable them educate and counsel mothers on a daily basis. Despite these limitations, Cameroon Link is advocating that mothers should be able to decide and make informed choices based on their knowledge and updated resources at its centre. These efforts contribute in the reduction of malnutrition and infant mortality in Cameroon.
Social Mutual Health Insurance
From HIV and Breastfeeding to Social Mutual Health Insurance. Cameroon link together with its partner associations, NGO, FBO and CBO organized a training workshop for the initiation of a new community health insurance scheme, at its pilot phase in some ten communities in Cameroon. Yvonne was associated to the theoretical and practical phases of this initiative. This started with her joining in the training session with community health workers and traditional leaders. She later was involved with other in marketing the insurance scheme within the communities as a first step to constitute shareholders of the initiative for community ownership.
In view of the fact that health care in Cameroon can be very expensive and despite the government efforts to subsidize drugs, each hospital is autonomous and therefore determines the prices at which it offers health care. There is actually no price control mechanism. Therefore the Ministry of Health has decided to empower the local communities to stand up for their rights through this community health insurance scheme. Yvonne Bekeny expressed her delight in the resourcefulness of the training sessions.
Her third week was very much concerned with field work in the different community health centres. She visited three of the community health facilities and had working sessions with medics, health and social workers involved especially in the HIV/AIDS prevention service deliveries. The field surveys facilitate her appraisal of Cameroon Link interventions in the health facilities within the communities. The health centre in Bonendale was apparently deserted at the time of her visit and patients complained that the centre was too far from the residential areas.
Curiously, the Bonendale Health Centre is the biggest community health facility , though it was not actually serving the population as expected. A lot of social marketing is done to reverse the situation and get people attend for at least, the immunisation of their children. The other health centres are rather small outfit for health area target populations. In these centres, Yvonne observed the work spirit, interviewed patients and nurses to understand their challenges before making some recommendations on how they could apply for funding to expand their facilities and improve on the quality of services.
She also made recommendations on how future projects in the health areas could be improved, if there was proper planning that involves all stake holders through the participatory rural appraisal approach, participatory learning and action approach (PRA/PLA) or mechanisms put in place during the planning phase. The field exercise was very practical and exciting for Yvonne, because she actually applied my knowledge on project planning and management in some cases as an ‘evaluator’. This field work also gave her an opportunity to get into the HIV/AIDS registers and get more facts which were significant in making recommendations to the education sector after analyzing data from her research.

WABA Celebrated 29th anniversary

WABA Celebrate 29th Anniversary With Breastfeeding Promotion Icons
The World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, WABA, on the 10th October 2008 organized a cultural evening at the International Secretariat to celebrate the 29th Anniversary of the organization. The occasion was also associated to the celebration of the 80th Birth Day of an icon of breastfeeding promotion, Pr, Dr. Michael Latham.
The staff at the International Secretariat planned a mix of activities which included the show of the premises housing the offices with each staff introduced to the members of the steering committee. An orchestra was put in place to produce live music and the breastfeeding icons from La Leche League International, LLLI, the International Lactation Consultant Association, ILCA, IBFAN and WABA went on stage spontaneously to present meaning theatre that depicted some of the problems the different movements wished to correct in the different regions of the world.
It was an evening for all ages as we found kids on stage to highlight the need to gender mainstream activities starting with the youths, as sweet songs were reproduced with play back system to animate the parents.
As the cake of the anniversary was unveiled, Co-Director, Susan Siew invited the Coordinator of WABA Men’s Working Group, James Achanyi-Fontem, to accompany her on stage in an African traditional show with talking drum from Mozambique, which got everybody dancing with joy,
In one of the theatre videos of the anniversary celebration put on the “Not For Fathers Only” you tube, WABA Co-Director Sarah Amin is found acting the role of referee with the red nose that was just a way of keeping all the 54 members of the WABA Think Tank awake throughout the 29th Anniversary evening. Before this occasion, the International Coordinator of the World Breastfeeding Week Olympic Marathon Competition, Julianna Lim Abdullah, had notified Cameroon Link through a member of the jury of the Gold Medal Award 2008 in the pipeline due to the satisfactory performance of the Africa Region through Cameroon. The medal was accompanied by the certificate attached to this story.
It was an occasion everyone would like to see repeated in the future, as it was not all work in Penang, Malaysia. For more on this article, click on http://camlinknews.blogspot,com/ and http://uk.youtube,com/camlink99 for the video version of the events. For information on the World Breastfeeding Week in Cameroon, please click on the following link - http://www.worldbreastfeedingweek.net/wbw2008/cameroon.htm