By Boris Esono Nwenfor
BUEA, Cameroon – The Fomunyoh Foundation, TFF, a non-profit organization founded by Dr Christopher Fomunyoh has donated didactic materials to over 100 internally displaced persons, IDPs, from the North West and South West Regions, residing in Yaounde, Center Region of the country.
The school needs to be donated to the students at the head office of the Fomunyoh Foundation in Yaounde on August 21, 2024, which was done in collaboration with the Safe Empowerment Reform Foundation, SERF-International.
Professor Elizabeth Tamajong, Executive Director of the Fomunyoh Foundation said: “We commemorated this day on the 21st by putting smiles on the faces of the IDP children by giving them back to school supplies so that to enable them to have relief and hope through this gift that we’re giving them and helping the parents not to buy books and so on.”
“It went across from nursery school right up to university level and that’s what we did. And our partners from the U.S. are very young girls who have just finished their profession. They may have worked up to five years but they thought of putting a smile back on the faces of their brothers and sisters back home.”
Professor Tamajong added: “The peculiarity is that first of all, we used to do it single-handedly. This time around we had our children. Secondly, we didn’t use to include the university level but this time we included the IDPs at the university level.”
This is not the first time that the Fomunyoh Foundation has come to assist displaced persons due to the ongoing Anglophone crisis. The conflict that started in 2016 has seen thousands of people killed, maimed, kidnapped and others forced to flee their homes for shelter in neighbouring Nigeria and other parts of the country.
“I’m so happy because they were not expecting to find so many books because one child left here with about 10 books, a packet of pencils and pens and rulers, math sets,” Professor Tamajong added. “So, it’s perfect because it boosted the economy of the children and then the emotional and social aspect of the parents that they had these things you know just like that at the tip of their fingers. And they appreciated them because things are really hard.”
“When we give these books to the children, they are relieved because they know that they will go to school stress-free. And psychologically we are also helping the parents who don’t have good sleep. They have sleepless nights thinking about how the children will go back to school. I am still saying that the parents should count on us, should count on the Fomunyoh Foundation for the relief and hope of their children and themselves.”
Professor Tamjong added: “We are through that also looking for more children to train because here we train them free of charge. They don’t pay anything. During this holiday, the children came here from June right up to now. As you see the marked improvement that they’ve done, you know, bringing out their skills in embroidery and the market department, the traditional dress and then even the modern dresses. If you see them, you go down, you won’t believe. So, I’m still counting on my parents. Send your children here. Don’t let them be at home idly because their idle mind is the devil’s workshop.”
About the Fomunyoh Foundation
The Fomunyoh Foundation (TFF) is a non-profit organization founded in 1999 by Dr Christopher Fomunyoh and a dedicated group of persons and advocates in the international democracy community. It partners with philanthropists and democratic and human rights constituencies within Cameroon, as well as internationally, to improve the well-being of the Cameroonian people and strengthen institutions and human rights in Cameroon.
