RUDEC Newsletter

Issue 2, February 2010

RUDEC NEWS

Those of you that have not visited the website for a while should take a look, as we have updated much of the content to make it more relevant to the projects that RUDEC is running at the moment.

We are very sad to have to say that Martin, RUDEC's Project Officer, passed away over Christmas. He will be greatly missed and our condolonsces go to his family.

Volunteers

Brynne and Reinoud arrived in January, both staying in Belo for three months. Reinoud is learning to keep bees with Joshua. He is also going to help Joshua look for additional land to build new apiaries that would provide a source of income for RUDEC. It is estimated that each plot will cost around 20,000CFA (30€), we will also need to raise funds to buy materials for the hives.

Brynne has been supervising the construction of a water stand pipe and is now holding health education classes in local schools and quarter meetings.

Louise and Sian are still here, working on anything and everything but with a focus on the Orphan Program (see below for more news), and are also to stay until the end of March.

Sebastien and Gladys are two new local volunteers who joined RUDEC in January. Sebastien has been visiting schools with Brynne helping her deliver classes, whilst Gladys has been working on the orphan project.

Electricity & Computer Lab for the Office

In addition to his beekeeping internship, Reinoud has been working with Joshua to connect electricity to the office. The meter has now been installed and the two are now focusing on the second part of the project, setting up a computer lab. This requires the concreting, plastering of the second room in the office as well as the building of a ceiling and glass windows to prevent dust entering the room. Thanks to online donations, work was able to be started on this at the beginning of February and should be completed by the end of March. The computers will be provided by Reinoud, who was able to obtain several donations before coming here.

The purpose of the computer lab is to provide a place for schol children to attend classes to learn basic computer skills, as well as use an e-library and resource centre.

Library

A part of the resource centre will be a physical library, stocked with children's books and novels, which are very hard to come by in Cameroon. The target age group for the library will be 5 - 16 years, so if you have any books you would like to donate please let us know. Louise and Si穗 will be putting a package together to send over when they return to the UK, so if you would prefer to post within Europe please contact (louise.harris@rudec.org)

PROJECT NEWS

Water Project

The villagers of Fuchale had previously spent hours every day trekking to retrieve a basic necessity, drinking water. This past fall, RUDEC, funded by The Project Solution (www.theprojectsolution.org), built a water pipeline to reach Fuchale and two much needed water taps. In January, Brynne worked with community members to further extend the water pipeline that RUDEC had built. The water project has thus been completed with the construction of the third and final water tap in Fuchale, rendering drinking water readily accessable and available to those in need.

Community Health Initiative

Brynne and local RUDEC volunteer, Sebastian, have been working together to develop an educational program that focuses on safe family planning; nutrition; disease prevention via good hygiene practices; and the building of other life-long healthy habits. The team so far has spoken in primary and secondary schools, church groups, and community-focus groups, such as RUDEC's Seniors' club.

Eye Glasses

450 pairs of eye glasses have been donated by the U.K. Charity Center for Vision in the Developing world, with the help of a $5000 grant from Google. These are adjustable glasses, for which the prescription can be set to the level needed by an individual using two syringes mounted on the frame. Once the lenses have been adjusted to the correct prescription the syringes are removed, leaving the wearer with a pair of custom-adjusted glasses. This can all be done by untrained people since no formal diagnosis is needed, and RUDEC is now holding a weekly clinic.

Seniors' Club

Louise has been working with community members in Nuhifor and Mbulam to set up two new Seniors' Clubs in their areas. The club in Nuhifor is now up and running though getting everyone in the same place at the same time for Mbulam is proving rather more challenging! Brynne has already spoken to the Nuhifor group about basic hygiene and plans to do the same at Mbulam.

After-School Club

The After-School Club continues to be popular and we have seen a rise in the number of attendees since we started visiting orphans at the start of January.

Orphan Program

As previously mentioned, Louise and Si穗 have been working on the Orphan Project since the new year. In order to be able to provide for all the children registered the program will focus on their health and education needs. They have created a fundraising target of 3147€ for the next academic year, which is easily adjustable for future years. An outline of the target is on the updated website now and a more detailed version will be available soon. There is also detail about what you can provide with even a small donation. For example, 7€ pays for a HIV/AIDS test & medical check-up for one child; 30€ will pay for a secondary child's school fees for one year.

We would like to say a big thank Ana Moreno, a past volunteer, who together with friends fundraised 500€ over Christmas for the program. This will allow us to pay for any remaining costs for this academic year, including textbooks and the remaining fees for Marcel's welding apprenticeship, with the rest going towards next year's school fees.

In order to assess children's current health and education needs we have been visiting all children, with Gladys. Many children passed their Christmas exams, with notable performances from Joysline and Lawrence, coming first and fourth respectively in their classes. This is especially impressive as they both missed the first part of the term.

As part of the visits we have also been distributing shoes, clothes and toothbrushes, kindly donated by Louise's aunt in the UK. Above is a picture of Solange receiving a pair of very pretty pink sandals.

We of course welcome all donations to the orphan project and any amount that you can donate, whether it be as a one-off or a regular payment, would be greatly gappreciated. Please contact Joshua or one of the current volunteers for further details on how you can make your contribution and really make a difference to these children’s lives.

Thanks for reading; we hope to hear from you soon!