25Apr

GAICAM No Child Left Behind (NCLB)

By Programs 2,261 Comments

The GAICAM No Child Left Behind (NCLB) is a project of the GAICAM Children Foundation with an unspecified life span which was created to serve as a platform to help orphans and needy children with the means to go to school like others. This project has the following as objectives:

  • To identify orphans and needy children who really want to go to school and better their lives but lack the means, and proceed to helping them.
  • To build dreams and provide hope to the hopeless.
  • To promote the education of the girl child, so they can live their dreams.
  • To serve as a platform to enable orphans and needy children live a purposeful life.
  • To educate our youths and reduce crime, early marriages, unwanted pregnancies, alcoholism, HIV/AIDS etc in our communities.

This project was created in 2013 and has since its creation brought smiles and hope to over 48 orphans and needy children including the girl child who because of financial constraints could not go to school. This project has significantly helped to promote the education of some young people especially in the North West & South West Regions of Cameroon.

This project was designed in response to our findings in August 2012, that education wasn’t given as much priority as it should, especially the education of the girl child in some villages in the North West Region of Cameroon. We discovered that most children who had lost their parent (s) or were born out of wedlock were denied the right to education. All they did was work for their guardians who never thought of sending them to school because they saw it as a waste of money especially since they will soon get married and start raising their own families. They see the educational path to success to be a waste of time and resources. Also, some of the parents think sending their girl child to school is a waste of resources because she is another man’s property. They will prefer sending the male child to school than for a female. With that in mind, immediately the girl child gets to puberty, they start looking for a man to take her in as wife.

This refusal/lack of financial resources to educate most of these kids saw the rise of sexual promiscuity and high levels of crime with the coming of social media which puts the youths at risk, exposing them to ills such as alcoholism, HIV/AIDS, unwanted pregnancy etc, while impairing their future and causing them to lead unproductive/unhealthy lives. This belief of some of these parents actually limits these children from greater opportunities offered by education in a globalized and knowledge economy. It exposes the girl child to prostitution, forceful marriages, crime, terrorism, HIV/AIDS and others, just because they have been denied the right to education.

The GAICAM Children’s Foundation for which this project is a subunit has for over the past years in the course of promoting the education of youths and that of the girl child, organized community education awareness talks and radio programs in some target communities in other to create a platform that motivates the communities duelers to send their children to school, especially the girl child. The foundation also offers full scholarships to those who lack the means to school and better their lives.

We have visited and discussed with some young mothers in these communities who are victims of unwanted pregnancy (between the ages of 12-15) and consequently school dropouts. Through sensitization on the importance of education and the fact that they could turn their lives around had some interesting results, with 11 mothers so far accepting to resume school in the 2016/2017 academic year.

GAICAM mass sensitizations in different communities on the importance of education, including that of the girl child have now reached more than 2800 families. This has contributed significantly to the increase in school enrolment in these communities by up to 12% since the project was launched in January 2013, as compared to before.

On the other hand, apart from providing full scholarships to orphans and needy children as well as the girl child, we have provided textbooks, other didactic materials and awarded prizes to KUFELE Memorial Limbe, GBHS ATiela Bamenda, Community Initiative High School Ndop, BASK Kumba, SBHS Buea and GTC Babungo. In addition, we have visited 137 secondary schools in the North & South West Region of Cameroon for the past few years, presenting motivation and academic talks to thousands of students and changing their lives in one way or the other as we educate them on:

  • How to set objective academic goals and achieve them, as well as educate them on how to manage their time wisely before the start of their final exam.
  • How to study with a vision, as well as how to develop a good retentive memory in just 14 days to enable them to assimilate material for long term use especially in their exams.
  • How to prepare for exams when it’s just a few weeks, days, and hours away, as well as how to manage examination pressure during and after the exams.
  • How to organize their study routine, as well as how to choose a sustainable career in higher education.etc

We at GAICAM strongly believe that those involved in crime, alcoholism, promiscuity and HIV/AIDS, terrorism, theft etc are probably doing so because they didn’t have study opportunities as compared to others. We need a transformation of the mindset in this generation in order to make the world safer and peaceful. Education undoubtedly is the key to a sustainable life and development, as well as social cohesion. As such, education must be made available for all who wish for a better life. Educating the youths of today is preparing a more sustainable growth for our economy tomorrow, as well as making the world much safer than it is today.

Join GAICAM through our Children Foundation and let’s work together to give hope to the hopeless and strength to the weak, especially the girl child, as well as build safer communities.

Our target now is:

  • To expand and significantly expand the number of the orphans and the needy as well as provide them with full scholarship to study in regular schools.
  • To provide 30 full scholarships to the girl child who have been denied the right to education
  • To provide 20 full scholarships to the young mothers who either dropped out of school due to their unwanted pregnancy or financial constraints.

Support us in any way you can: sponsor a child either in basic or secondary schools. You can as well donate exercise books, pens, textbooks, didactic materials, benches or materials for extracurricular activities.

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