By IKOME CHRISTIE-NOELLA EPOSI
Some 17 internally displaced persons in Buea have benefited from Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Kits donated to them by the Centre for the Advancement of Women’s Initiatives (CAWI). The donation ceremony which took place recently at the ERuDeF head office in Buea was spearheaded by the director of CAWI, Lucia Nkembi.
Following the Humanitarian Emergency Response Programme for internally displaced persons in the Anglophone regions of Cameroon, CAWI came up with this initiative of providing IDPs with the WASH Kits which comprise of buckets, soap, sanitary pads, toilet tissue, dresses and shoes, evenly distributed to the IDP’s most of which were women.
Addressing the IDP’s present at the ceremony, the Director of CAWI, Lucia Nkembi said her organisation shares in the plight of the IDPs, reasons why WASH items have been given to them to show concern in their suffering condition. With the motto of Empowering Women and girls for a brighter future, Lucia Nkembi added that CAWI was created by ERuDeF and seeks to enhance and empower marginalized, suffering women and girls in Cameroon.
She thanked ERuDeF for providing them with the necessary financial resources which enabled them purchase the items and equally appreciated Madam Tabendang for providing dresses and shoes to the IDPs.
Explaining the importance of Hygiene and Sanitation, the lead cluster of WASH, Floris Atem told all present to practise good hygiene so as to enable them live a clean and healthy life. She said water and sanitation diseases cause significant deaths and sicknesses which is more rampant in crowded homes and quarters. For example, Diarrhoea she said kills over 30,000 children per week worldwide. She therefore urged all to make good use of the WASH kits given to them by CAWI.
Aside the donation of the WASH kits to the IDPs, CAWI has also within the year launched the women’s empowerment rain forest arts competition wherein 19 girls of the Government High School Buea town were empowered through their arts activities and awarded handsomely with cash prizes. “We have equally carried out a free health check in collaboration with the IYA Foundation in the United States where health checks were granted to 50 internally displaced persons at Hope Outreach in Buea”, Lucia Nkembi highlighted.
She equally revealed that “In the days ahead, training workshops will be organised wherein 100 internally displaced women will be invited and trained on soap making. We intend granting economic empowerment to women and girls”.
At the close of the programme, some of the IDPs who received the kits expressed joy and thanked CAWI for making them have a feel of belonging in the society.
It should be noted that the Centre for the Advancement of Women’s initiatives (CAWI) is a semi-autonomous non-profit organization created in 2010 by the Environment and Rural Development Foundation (ERuDeF) to support its Women and Gender programmes in Cameroon. Its goal is to reach out to the underprivileged, uplift and bring out value or potential in Women and girls towards the achievement of sustainable development goal number 05, which seeks to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.