DOUALA, CAMEROON – Judith Jöelle Mbondji worked for the African Union for more than five years auditing in West, East, Central and South Africa before returning to her home country, Cameroon, in 2011.
It was then that she decided to give back by volunteering at the supplementary learning center that had helped her develop academically and personally as a 17-year-old in secondary school in Douala, the capital of western Cameroon’s Littoral province. The Rubisadt Foundation Learning Center is a supplementary school that trains girls between the ages of 11 and 19 who show promise and interest in science and technology.
“Beyond what I could have enjoyed elsewhere, I think this is where I need to be,” Mbondji says of coming back to Cameroon. “I ought to give my contribution to my nation, no matter how difficult it can be sometimes to live in.”
Mbondji, who has a Bachelor of Science in computer sciences and a Master of Business Administration in finance from two different universities in Kenya, emphasizes education for girls and women as a development tool.
“So far, I have volunteered at the foundation because I do believe that change or development will only happen through education – and mostly through education of women and girls,” she says.
The foundation intertwines both academic and personal development in its training, Mbondji says. For example, the teachers train the girls in ethics because they believe it is important to teach them who they are and how to best make their own decisions. This approach enables the girls to excel in the fields they choose as well as to be considerate of their families, their friends and their environment.
“I was able to reinforce my academic knowledge in all my subjects in school,” she says with conviction. “But I was also privileged to have people who listened to me, listened to my problems, and helped me build my personality and also to be more assured of myself, to be more self-confident. And it helped me boost my self-esteem.”
Mbondji thanks the center for encouraging her to pursue higher education and the career she envisioned for herself.
“They gave me skills and tools to face the world,” she says.
She strives to do the same for other girls through her volunteering there.
Access to formal education is limited for girls in Cameroon, especially in rural areas. So the government and nongovernmental organizations have launched training centers throughout Cameroon to offer a supplement to or substitute for formal education. Advocates tout women’s education and economic empowerment as the key to the country's future.
The net attendance ratio for secondary school is 37 percent for girls in Cameroon, according to UNICEF. The literacy rate for females ages 15 to 24 is 77 percent.
Limited access to education is one of the key areas hindering women from having equal access to economic opportunity in Cameroon, says Kah Walla, a member of the coordinating group of La Pietra Coalition, a global advocacy group for women’s economic empowerment.
Walla says that Cameroon scores poorly – 114 out of 128 countries – on a women’s economic opportunity index that La Pietra Coalition developed in association with Vital Voices, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to training and empowering female leaders around the world.
“One of the major challenges presented by the women is access to education because we know that it is the basis,” Walla says. “If a woman does not have education, then her economic opportunities are very limited.”
Walla says that a lot of the women struggling in the informal sector are those who dropped out of school because of early pregnancies or because their parents could not afford the fees. She says that if these women learned computer operation, management and entrepreneurship, they could improve their economic standings.
Informal learning centers run by nongovernmental organizations and foundations strive to provide this training.
The objective of the Rubisadt Foundation’s learning center is to encourage more girls to commit to science studies, says Florence Tobo Lobé, president of the foundation.
“When people talk about science, they think it’s a mystery!” she says. “I want people to understand that science is not magic. Science is something that you come across every day.”
The foundation strives to give the girls skills and support to research acute problems in society.
As of June 2012, the foundation had trained approximately 250 girls from Douala and about 70 others in rural areas, she says. It works with about 10 high schools in Douala, where most of the girls attend school. Other students at the center are dropouts from schools in rural areas throughout Cameroon.
Fees to participate depend on the program and course, Lobé says.
Walla says that not every girl can afford to attend school, especially in rural areas. When parents can’t afford school for all their children, they prioritize their sons’ education over their daughters’. The women she speaks to in her workshops are advocating for free education.
To fill this gap, the Rubisadt Foundation reaches girls in rural areas through help from village administrators, traditional leaders and social workers, Lobé says.
“We know how to do it,” she says. “We have the expertise.”
Once the foundation decides that it’s going to a particular area, the members visit the village administration, Lobé says. With permission, they go into the village to speak with the leaders about their objectives.
Lobé says the training that the foundation gives these young girls has had tremendous impact.
“We want and we have succeeded in transforming those girls’ lives and their teachers’ lives,” she says.
She cites an example of a pilot project the foundation offered in the rural area of Mount Manenguba with UNESCO. They brought teachers to stay in the village and to train girls from an underrepresented clan, the Mbororos.
The girls of the village regularly face limited or lack access to education as well as marry at a young age. But Lobé says their chief came to the training camp to express his gratitude, saying the foundation has changed the lives of the girls, making them ready and excited to go to school.
Lobé did not provide specific information about whether girls had to pay to participate in this program.
The government is also involved in this growing initiative. The Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and the Family operates municipal training centers for women throughout decentralized regions of the country.
The Littoral region has six such centers where young girls receive training in skills such as dyeing, sewing, computing, catering, hairdressing, growing crops, breeding animals and planting. Their newly acquired skills and certificates denoting their field of study enable them to find employment or to become self-employed.
A director of one of the training centers, Louise Florènce Tamssar, says they mostly recruit girls who didn’t succeed in formal education. Many are intelligent, but their families lacked the means to send them to school. Some didn’t even attend primary school, so they may not know how to read and write.
“So, we enroll them into those centers to give them a second chance for them to adapt into the new society,” Tamssar says.
Fees to participate in trainings at the government centers range from 30,000 francs ($60) to 60,000 francs ($120) depending on the course.
The futures of these young girls stand the chance of being brighter than they might have been without the vocational and life skills training they receive, she says.
“Most of the girls we train, first of all, quit the streets,” Tamssar says. “Some of them were prostitutes. They are girls with stories, and their stories change.”
Mbondji plans to start a business someday, but she wants to take her time.
“It could even be selling at the market,” she says. “You never know. But for me, it’s not about what you do, but really how you do it that matters.”
Walla says empowering women benefits everyone.
“Women’s economic empowerment is important for women, yes,” she says. “But it is important for men.”
She says every man would like to have a partner who can help to pay the bills, send the children to school, take care of family members who are sick, invest, build a house and buy a car.
“So for the entire society,” she adds, “women’s economic empowerment is important.”
And economic empowerment starts with education, Walla says.
