“The timely donation has solved an impending challenge and shall give kids a wonderful, incredible and friendly learning space…”
This was the appreciation of the Headmaster of St. John Nursery and Primary School Foncha Street while receiving 50 benches, 2 tables and 2 chairs donated by Strategic Humanitarian Services, SHUMAS Cameroon and BSFA-UK on Wednesday 14 February 2021.
The St. John School is one of the rare schools that resumed during the ongoing Anglophone Crises. The enrollment rose last year from 215 to 680 pupils this year making it difficult for the school authorities and the Parents Teachers Association to cope with the surge. Last year, SHUMAS Cameroon assisted the same school with Covid prevention kits and a 6 compartment VIP gender segregated toilet block.
The same humanitarian gesture was also extended to St Joseph Catholic College Mankon and Saint Charles Lwanga Catholic School Up Station with the danding over done in the presence of jubilant student and pupils, school administration and church authorities.
At Saint Joseph Catholic School Mankon which before now functioned without a science laboratory, SHUMAS transformed a classroom to an equipped laboratory with the finest science kits, apparatuses benches and stools for the school.
During the handing over and while visiting the laboratory, high school students had started using the equipment and immediately demonstrated a titration test in a somewhat show of gratitude.
In the past, students of this school were using an improvised classroom which served as a dual teaching space and wanton laboratory.
Catholic School Saint Charles Luanga, Upstation was beneficiary of a newly constructed block of classrooms, toilets and benches.
For the past 3 years the St. Lwanga Catholic Quasi Parish is host to many Internally Displaced Families running away from the conflict in the interior villages of the North West Region.
The Parish Priest improvised classrooms in the Church and in the Cathechist home to accommodate kids of these internally displaced persons. As more academic years rolled on, the enrollment into this improvised school rose to an alarming rate and the buildings could no longer acomodate the Children.
While handing over the infrastructures and material at the different educational establishments, Ndzerem Stephen, SHUMAS Director cautioned that the donation should be judiciously used for the purpose for which it was intended emphasizing that education of the child remains primordial.
“The only thing u can give to a child is education. If a child is to be the president of this country and that child does not go to school, the child would not even be a truck pusher. That is why we invest eighty percent of our projects on education” he noted.
He told students and pupils that education is the foundation of human existence and it is the only key to the future.
The School Manager of Saint Charles Luanga, Upstation, Reverend Father Edward Siani just like the that of St. John Nursery and Primary School, Foncha Street Rev. Fr Gabriel Afumbom and the Principal of Saint Joseph Catholic School Mankon, Rev. Father Bonaventure Ndong all appreciated SHUMAS for the timely intervention in a context where the ongoing crisis in the Anglophone regions had amplified their challenges in educating kids.
“We remain very greatful to SHUMAS for this donation. With the outbreak of COVID19 and with the suspension and resumption of schools calling on institutions to take all the measures to fight COVID19 we had that great challenge of social distancing given that our enrolment was increasing so we had to approach SHUMAS to help us to see how we can have more benches so we approach and they readily accepted” noted the school manager of St. John Nursery and Primary School, Foncha Street.
It should be recalled that SHUMAS is one of the leading humanitarian organization in Cameroon and has been building and providing an enabling learning environment for decades the reason why over eighty percent of the NGOs center around education.