BY SIMON NDIVE KALLA
Buea-based non-governmental organization known as Hope Advocates Africa (HADA) on Tuesday May 10, 2022 donated delivery kits to 25 women in Buea Regional Hospital.
The delivery kits comprised of a set comprised of; Baby’s Bath tub, bucket, basket, sieve, potty, night gown for mother, pair of gloves and syringes, pair of bandage, bathing soap, baby’s clothes, towel etc.
According to the Founder of Hope Advocates Africa Caryn Dasah the Global Fund for Human Rights funded the project to help mitigate the impact of Covid-19. As a result of Covid-19, the state of human rights of women and girls living in conflict torn communities in the North West and South West regions has been greatly affected.
Access to health services has been a long time issue as women, girls have limited access to sexual reproductive health and rights services as some hospitals and courts and houses have been destroyed by fighters. With the spread of corona virus into Cameroon, there have been an increase in GBV, Domestic violence and government has put in place measures, restricting the movement of people thus making life more difficult to many.
Maternal and neonatal death rates are seemingly on the rise in Cameroon and as the socio-political crisis worsens the situation for most women making them vulnerable and disadvantaged. Being vulnerable and pregnant is not easy for these women who live in the conflict hit zone.
It is on the basis of this that Hope advocates Africa with funds from Global Fund for Human Rights, NAMATI and Covid-19 Grassroot Justice Funds provided delivery kits to vulnerable pregnant women and girls in the South West Region.
Hope Advocates for Africa founded in 2015 is a youth led organization registered in Cameroon, working on the Promotion and protection of the sexual reproductive and human rights of women and girls, women’s empowerment, peace building.
This organization has been active in serving the vulnerable population in the North West and South West Region. They carryout advocacy campaign on the respect of the rights of women and girls, TV talks, radio programs over community radio stations and trainings in schools.
They also provide paralegal services for victims of Gender Based Violence (GBV), organized awareness raising campaigns on GBV. Their mission is to advance social and environmental justice by building a movement of people who know, use, and shape the laws.
“With the help of our Funders, we were able to carry out activity 3 of our project which was; Distribution of Delivery Kits to Vulnerable Pregnant Women and Girls in the South West Region.The objective of this distribution includes; providing delivery kits which results to giving birth with dignity, reduction in the incidence of mater and neonatal tetanus and cord infection.
Before the official start of the program, beneficiaries had a self care moment to build their self esteem as most of them are survivors of violence and have been abandoned. a makeup session.
This session was to help them know the importance of self-care and give them that feeling of love, given that most of them are vulnerable and have gone through pain in the last years due to sociopolitical crisis so they deserve to be happy in spite of the stress and difficulties they are going through.
Furthermore, they were briefed about the importance of state of their mental health in pregnancy. This part was handled by a hospital staff who is a sexual reproductive health specialist.
The beneficiaries were encouraged to be strong as much as they can and were encouraged to be stress free for themselves and for the baby.
These women were filled with joy for the donations they received and others shed tears and gave testimonies of their inabilities to buy these delivery kits and how these items were a huge relieve for them.
They expressed the sincere wishes of blessings to Hope Advocates Africa and a lot more to their funders. Some beneficiaries were selected at random to be economically empowered by other stakeholders who we invited.
“Overall, it was a successfully activity and we met our target and reached out to vulnerable pregnant women who were victims of the socio-economic crisis and who were survivors of Gender Based Violence in the South West Region.” Caryn Dasah said.