SUSC for women break through

Marginalization of women/girls by culture and tradition in Eastern part of Cameroon

A heavy displacement of women/girls caused by the crisis in Cameroon.

Committing to solving heightening vulnerability and economic inequality due to the above points.

Creation of small business opportunities using the existing mobile money transaction scheme. And establishing digital learning opportunities for young female entrepreneurs in the East and Central regions of Cameroon. This solution will

Improve empowerment of women/ gender equality

Improve livelihood, reduce poverty and help them better provide for children and family

Reduce vulnerability

Yokadouma is in the East region where poverty and marginalization of women and the girl child  is at its peak of close to 90%. Some tribes found in this area namely: Bakas/pygmies; Mimbo; Voavon; Karkoh, to name but a few. Living and working with these groups of persons has been very challenging we therefor hope to encourage and work with these women to fight against some of the cultural bias including early marriages, malnutrition, working hard and giving the money to the men, that suppressed them.

Due to the crisis in Cameroon, there are about 530 thousand persons who been displaced to other regions of the country. Presently the political unrest in Central Africa has bought into the East region a total 285,170 persons. 

In Yaoundé alone we have about 25,520 urban refugees from various countries of the Central African States from UNHCR!GLOBAL FOCUS REPORT 2020. 

All these groups of persons will generally not be exposed to economic and empowerment opportunities.

In creating a mobile money transaction scheme, each woman will have an access to financial capital that will help them learn and manage money; have basic financial skills; improved communication and interactive skills and improve their access to other micro finance schemes for loans and investement. Overall, they will become mobil money operators.

Alternatively, other women would be enrolled into entreupreuneral building skills based on digital classrooms that will give them oppurtunities to chose from a diverse array of vocational training upportunities.

 This will include dressmaking/fabric designing; fashion designing and cosmetology; hotel management; culinary skills. Through the use of computers with internet and smart technologies, allowing them to harness online instructors via YouTube, etc

These are female IDP displaced from the North West and South West regions of the country caused by the socio political crisis and now the present COVID 19 further increasing their vulnerability.

Our solution will also target other women and girls including survivors of gender base violence, women and girls living with HIV; marginalised women and girls such as pygmies living in the east region og Cameroon.

These are girls at very high risk of experiencing forced and early marriages, and other forms of gender base violence. Having malnurished household and no livelihood. 

We have communities of sisters living and working in these areas. Coming so close to these groups of person and relating with them at a one to one level in community projects has provided a deeper understanding of this need.

We have at different times as individuals and as a community supported individual women and girl children by empowering them. currently, due to the COVID19 pandemic we are encouraging online learning for others. In this current project, we hope to improve on and test this initiative in a structured and formal manner.

Gender inequality continues to be a challenging issue in countries where culture and tradition turn to value more the male sex and makes them chief in command. It is thus common to find women and girl children who have not been expose to and given the opportunity to receive formal education. 

Providing opportunities and skilled building to these categories of persons as mobile money agents and small business owners(young entrepreneurs) would give them assess to contemporary technologies for business growth which they would otherwise not found assessible. This will reduce vulnerability and give them acess to capital and networks.

Within the past year, mobile money network continue to expand and made popular to many people since it is easy to learn and use. The fact that these women will be empowered with some given financial capital and skills will help them become empowered, financially autonomous, reduce inequality and vulnerability. It will be a group of women working together thus promoting team spirit, support and encourage among them thus increase confidence and self esteem. 

A group of trained and supported underprivileged women will be selected as Mobile Money agents and transformed to small business owners of the mobile money booths. Our approach will provide access to digital financial services among underprivileged women in the community through a network of prior underprivileged women now female mobile money agents from that same community.

Contrary to existing or past women empowerment and entrepreneurship - linked solutions, our solution will provide opportunities for marginalized /vulnerable females to serve non-traditional roles, such as mobile money agents. This solution will empower them as women entrepreneurs while they also provide women in their communities with access to digital financial services, such as payments, savings or cash disbursement.

As opposed to existing Mobile money agents, Our Mobile Money agents will be transformed to business owners equipped with basic business management potentials so to be sustainably empowered. Our solution will reduce financial inclusion gaps and other forms of gender inequalities and their consequences.

Our process of closing the final inclusion gap by transforming underprivileged and vulnerable women for their socio – economic empowerment relies greatly on contemporary digital financial services such as a Mobile Money services. Older financial systems including ATM, mobile banking and physical banking systems have failed to reach these categories of persons and contributed to the financial exclusion of women. The use, application and management of Mobile Money transactions does not require sophisticated protocol, specialized knowledge and skills or team and can be managed with minimal logistics. Basically, Mobile Money agents require a kiosk, a simple mobile phone, a sim card charged with capital funds and a rechargeable power bank.

Also our addressing the financial inclusion gap requires revolutionizing and upgrading vocational and entrepreneurship training for underprivileged and vulnerable by anchoring it on digital and web – based learning platforms. Our solution will involve use of a smart -board technology in a physical classroom setting to allow the learners to benefits from knowledge and skills on specialize resource persons, successful entrepreneurs and other mentors via YouTube and free online resources which cannot be provided by local resource persons or absent locally. Current approaches for vocational and entrepreneurship training are done via  irregular, unsupervised, one – on – one basis, often in a non –formal setting, with minimal access to adequately trained mentors and rarely prepares the trainee for a stiff business competition or innovation. Overall, the use of these technologies with enable follow – up of our solutions with rigor.

In Cameroon, the is increasing use of mobile phone/ money  in  urban, peri –urban communities. Rural communities are slow in embracing for obvious reasons. Mobile money is increasingly being used as a tool for empowering/ supporting vulnerable populations by development and humanitarian aid projects. In refugee camps in Cameroon, food aid was replaced by mobile money payments thus  refugees can choose what food to buy, and women relying less on their husbands.. In Kenya, a 2016 study reported that since 2008, as a result of access to M-Pesa mobile money services, an estimated 185,000 women moved from farming to business occupations. Zoona is doing a great job too in Malawi and Zambia, hiring women agents and helping them move at full speed. Pafupi Savings in Malawi is another success story.

The use of smart – boards or alternative technologies is low in Cameroon compared to other Africa countries. In the Gambia, this is used in the training of field workers of Medical Research Council (MRC) in remote settings. With greater reliability of Wi –Fi and solar systems in Cameroon, its application will be less challenged The positive impact of learning with smart –boards has been reviewed in Soh M. H. M. & Abdul H. A (2016) in a conference paper on A review of the use of smart boards in education during the IEEE 8th International Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED).

UNESCO has also provided its view in the link iite.unesco.org › pics › publications › files

The first component of our solution seeks to empower vulnerable women as Mobile Money agents. The project will organize community workshops with selected vulnerable women on basic mobile money operations and relevant business management skills such as records keeping, cash flows, and communication and time management skills; provide technical assistance and financial capital; establish Mobile money kiosks in suitable sites in the community. We will solicit MTN Cameroon, to provide our target communities with posters and other materials for the trained women to use in their marketing campaign. The selected agents will be trained and equipped with basic knowledge and skills in managing and/or becoming small business owners; provided with capital cash and registered to kick –start the Mobile money business, supported with a safe and well installed kiosk and supported with a rechargeable power bank and technical assistance to help resolve technical challenges with the use of mobile phones. The females in the communities will be sensitized on the use and benefits of Mobile Money services. The vocational and entrepreneurship component seeks to provide alternative empowerment opportunities to other vulnerable women and girls. This component will require the construction of a training site, equipping practical learning rooms and providing a classroom with smart –board technology. Identified women and girls will be enrolled in relevant training programs for training in specialist and general knowledge areas including basic business management competencies. Qualified trainees will  receive funds and mentoring to start – up their businesses

At the moment we are doing as individuals in a small scale but living and relating with these persons, we want to be more organised and formal.

Current Figures: 80 Women and girls

Internally Displaced Women:                           10

Female refugees:                                            35

Other Vulnerable/marginalized Women:           35

 One year Target: 200 women and girls

Internally Displaced Women:                            50

Female refugees:                                             50

Other Vulnerable/marginalized Women:           50

Other vulnerable girls                                      50

One year Target: 1000 women and girls

Internally Displaced Women:                             250

Female refugees:                                              250

Other Vulnerable/marginalized Women:            250

Other vulnerable girls                                       250

Target beneficiaries will eventually be linked up to micro-finance institutions for loans inorder to expand / sustain their businesses. The early outcomes will be that more underprivileged women are occupying non –traditional roles in the digital financial system of the communities; a number of women communities will own an e-wallet and are using them. More will gain economic empowerment, both in terms of increased net income through more access to income. In another dimension women will have greater voice, choices and control over financial resources. We expect them to have better attitudes and self –confidence /esteem. In long –term women and girls will have reduced vulnerabilities to early and forced marriages, HIV infections, gender – based violence; greater exposures to digital technologies and their families will benefit from better livelihood opportunities.

The organization will work in collaboration with its local partners to implement the activities such as the trainings/ workshops or the vocational and entrepreneurship program. Enrollment into the vocational training programme will be done annually, and biannually depending on the training focus. Each year prospective mobile money agents will be identified for training and followed – up at intervals for subsequently inclusion in the next stages of the empowerment protocol. Experts will be used in a panel for assessing women and girls who qualify for start –up funds and mentoring scheme and participation. The organization will follow – up beneficiaries during training and regularly visit them as they manage their businesses and repay start –up loans.

Within the past year, mobile money network continue to expand and made popular to many people since it is easy to learn and use. The fact that these women will be empowered with some given financial capital and skills will help them 

To accomplish these goals in the next year;

Power imbalances, cultural norms and misconceptions around the concept of women empowerment exist which are deeply rooted in some of the project areas in the East region is likely to create fear of being reproached for being part of any women empowerment scheme. The coronavirus pandemic will pose a barrier in the size of target beneficiaries that can be managed in any activity session in attempt to avoid overcrowding. This will definitely incur more cost in implementing activities. Timely acquisition of practical and interactive training tools stands as a challenge to the smooth take off of the VTEP

To accomplish goals in the next five years, maintenance of project goods/equipment purchased at the start of the project in a good state for use by incoming target women and girls will have to be addressed so as to minimize loss of funds for their management and or replacement. Poor management of small businesses and maybe loss to follow –up of some of the women and girls as they may relocate to other communities stands as a barrier to loan recovery and inability to track progress in the later years of the project

We will leverage the dynamism of the formal and informal community leaders in these communities and solicit the support of men in women empowerment.

The VTEP will implement a rotational schedule that allows only one specialized programme runs in a week. In addition a larger lecture hall will be constructed to be used to address this barrier.

A qualified practical training support will accompany all session to ensure equipment management protocol is fully respected and repairs are done in timely manner. Users of any project related goods may be required fined for broken equipment due to its misuse or disrespect

All beneficiaries will be closely monitored and coached for efficiency and effectiveness of the businesses. All women and girls who benefit from our solutions will be required to update the local relay agent on any plans of relocation so that we can continue to follow –up and advise their businesses for greater impact.

Full-time staff= 5

Part-time staff= 5

General coordinator= 1

Ass coordinators= 5

Occasional helping staff= 4

Support staff= 4

Being with and living among these groups of persons for so long have gone a long way to build trust, love and respect. The people see that we have come to stay and not to exploit them.

 We as a congregation of women dedicated to serve our communities and with decades of experience working with the target communities in the Education, Health and Nutrition sector. We have served …..(no) Communities in the East region and …. in the Centre region with extensive work in the rural and peri –urban areas.

We have a diverse team of women with knowledge and skills in Business Management, Gender and Development, Education and Social Development. We are also very experienced in School Management and Administration and have occupied such positions in schools across Cameroon. 

We currently operate Child nutrition projects in the East region with a small component on the empowerment of the Women (mothers of the children) in which an idea of the solution we are proposing is being implemented. In the Centre region, we work with women on case by case basis to empower them with skills to start –up small businesses and sustain a livelihood.

We as a religious congregation work with: 

- Holy Union sisters/ Associates/ friends in United States

- AJC in France

- Local church where we are working

Our Solution has two components – Empowering underprivileged women through Mobile Money Services and through vocational ad entrepreneurship training. Workshops, Marketing and HeForShe campaigns, skill trainings and business management lessons are key activities requiring resource persons; facilitators for trainings and workshops; cash for start – up funds/ logistics. Community leaders and women groups will be our major stakeholders and together we shall identify the right categories of persons for the programme. We expect that female internally displaced persons and refugees, marginalized women from pigmies’ communities, other vulnerable women such as survivors of GBV, women and girls living with HIV, teenage mothers etc will benefit from our programme. Regional MTN Cameroon will be our partner in the Mobile money operations.

 We assumed that with the availability and accessibility of opportunities for empowerment, women will be empowered to make better choices, have greater voice in the society and contribute financially in welfare of their children and families. We will measure revenues from their small businesses and jobs our young entrepreneurs create for themselves and for others as an indirect sign for economic development.

 We will document the socio –economic and demographic situation of the women and girls in the communities before, during and at the end of the programme by comparing with baseline data. 

We will document and show case success stories from our transformed women as successful entrepreneurs for the communities to appreciate the transformation of underprivileged/vulnerable women and girls

Beginnings are never easy so we intend to write a Copple of grants for a starts and also contact individuals for donations. once started, we intend to build ourselves because participants/beneficiaries will after an agreed period be able to give back/refund their starting capital which will be used to assist more people. We want to work it out as a simple loan skill which will be interest free as the interest will become your working capital as each woman works towards becoming financially autonomous.

Through the vocational training services, we intend that each woman enjoy learning, achieving their potentials and become independent. We shall be able to produce articles for sales, render services that are lucreative

I am impressed with all that solve has been doing to assist and dignify human beings especially the vulnerable og our world

We need first an initial sum to begin and as time goes on, we might need assistance in evaluation depending on the evolution

We are still in the process of identifying potential partners who could support with human resources and equipment.

Assisting and helping refugees find and settle in their new home country.

Ensure they are able to do some basic and simple easy to manage lucreative business to help them live a wothy and dignified life

We are female religious who understand the place of a woman in our culture and tradition and will always speak out and assist in what ever way we can to help uplift a woman