Cameroon

In-Country Activities
- Institute and Training of Trainers - IT Center - Leadership Workshops - Curriculum development in French - Curriculum development in English

Our Partner

Community Education and Development Services (CEDS) works with grassroots communities in Northwest Province and South Province of Cameroon, which have little or no access to the vast majority of NGO services available in the country. In addition to leadership training for grassroots women’s groups, village councils, and national and regional organizations, CEDS carries out HIV/AIDS sensitization in prisons, post-primary institutions and rural communities. CEDS also conducts information communication technology (ICT) training for women at the WLP-CEDS Information Technology (IT) Center in Bamenda, Cameroon.

Women's Status at a Glance

Country Overview

Government type: Republic; multiparty presidential regime (opposition parties legalized in 1990)
Total population: 15.7 million
Population under age 15: 41.9%
GDP per capita: $2,118 (purchasing power parity)
Life expectancy: 45.8 years
Ethnic groups: Cameroon Highlanders 31%, Equatorial Bantu 19%, Kirdi 11%, Fulani 10%, Northwestern Bantu 8%, Eastern Nigritic 7%, other African 13%, non-African less than 1%
Religions: Indigenous beliefs 40%, Christian 40%, Muslim 20%
Internet users: --

Education and Health

Adult literacy rate
Female rate: 59.8%
Male rate: 77%
Maternal mortality rate: 730 per 100,000 live births
Total fertility rate: 4.6 births per woman

Political Participation

Year women received right to
Vote: 1946
Stand for election: 1946
Seats in parliament held by women
Lower house: 8.9%
Upper house: --
Women in govt. at ministerial level: 11.1%
Quotas: Political party quota for electoral candidates

Stories and Reports

Francophone Cameroon to Benefit from Expansion of CEDS Leadership Programs

January 2007: WLP Cameroon/Community Education and Development Services (CEDS) has expanded their work in the mainly Anglophone northwest province to regional work in francophone Cameroon. In January, CEDS held a National Training of Trainers (TOT) Institute for 26 women’s rights activists and community leaders in Garoua, francophone northern Cameroon. French is spoken by 80% of the population, and English by the remainder 20%, but Cameroon’s linguistic diversity includes over 250 indigenous languages.

Participants decided to launch an advocacy campaign against forced early marriage, where they will apply their newly acquired participative leadership, communication, and advocacy skills.

( categories: Cameroon | Institutes and Training of Trainers )

Snapshot of Leadership Workshops in 2005

Here are some examples of leadership training workshops that took place in 2005. These stories offer a sampling of the different themes present in WLP's leadership workshops.

Leadership Workshop in Mbouda, Cameroon, December 12-14, 2005
Thirty-two women and two men, predominantly engaged in small-scale subsistence farming, attended the workshop. They identified strategies for tackling the challenges they face in agricultural production, and decided to raise awareness in their communities about the rights of peasant farmers.

Leadership Workshop in Kaédi, Mauritania, November 9-11, 2005
Thirty leaders of women's rights organizations from each department of Kaédi, the capital of the remote Gorgol region, attended the workshop. Participants identified the need for stronger bonds of solidarity between women's organizations operating in the same region, and committed to forming a network, to be coordinated by WLP's Mauritanian partner.

Cameroonian Women Improve Family Relations

Women in Cameroon Discuss Family Challenges In 2005-6, WLP partner Community Education and Development Services (CEDS) has reached out to two rural communities in Cameroon - Ako and Fundong - to host Leading to Choices leadership workshops for women.

Many of the participants coordinated local women's groups to improve conditions in their communities. Yet the majority of them did not think of themselves as leaders when they began the workshop. One participant said of her group, "We cannot be considered leaders, as many of us can neither read nor write."

( categories: Cameroon | News Articles )

Workshops in Afghanistan and Cameroon Evaluate Leadership Learning

Afghanistan Workshop WLP's partners the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) and Community Education and Development Services (CEDS) recently conducted leadership workshops in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Cameroon. Both AIL and CEDS also conducted their first evaluation workshops with women who had previously participated in leadership training courses using the Leading to Choices curriculum. The evaluation workshops are designed to measure improvements in women's ability to exercise leadership and to determine how participants' leadership skills have led to positive changes in their families and communities, improvement in the effectiveness of women's advocacy efforts, and development of local and regional networks.

WLP and BAOBAB Convene Learning Institute for Women's Leadership and Training of Trainers in Sub-Saharan Africa

Participants shake hands Twenty-five women from eight African countries met in Calabar, Nigeria for the Africa Regional Learning Institute for Women's Leadership and Training of Trainers. Co-organized by Women's Learning Partnership (WLP) and BAOBAB for Women's Human Rights, the five-day Institute aimed to strengthen participants' capacity to become better trainers and advocates in empowering grassroots women to become effective decision-makers in their families, communities, and societies. Participants were from Cameroon, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. Among them were Vabah Gayflor, Minister of Gender and Development in Liberia, and Hafsat Abiola, President of the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy in Nigeria.

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