Govt Receives 15 Free New Classrooms

Summed up as a rare demonstration of humanitarian actions, some five colleges and primary schools in Bui division have offered special prayers in favour of their benefactors, who recently constructed and freely handed to them, 15 classrooms, several offices, stores, staff rooms, toilets, school wash-hand basins, benches, tables, chairs, drinking pails, school gardens and micro-credit schemes, amongst others.

Bui's Senior Divisional Officer, Nzeki Theophile, took the blessings of the administration to the respective institutions during respective handing-over events that assembled beneficiary communities and the donors; Strategic Humanitarian Services (SHUMAS) and their UK- based partners, "Building Schools for Africa".

The crowd-pulling events in Kitiwum and Rifem, Mbven Sub-division; Kichy and Kiyan, Kumbo Sub-division and Nkar in Jakiri Sub-division sang and danced for SHUMAS, credited for standing by and impacting on the lives of people in rural communities. It was against this backdrop that the Director of SHUMAS, Ndzerem Stephen Njodzeka, said their vision is to improve standards of living in rural communities and among the urban poor. He counted the blessings of their integrated and participatory approach with 700 classrooms constructed, rehabilitated and equipped with benches, tables, chairs and tables across the country.

In barely seven years of legal existence, the non-governmental organisation, SHUMAS, also takes credit for providing potable water to over 30 urban communities and 40 schools while 100 peasant farmers have received 10 months of professional training on sustainable integrated farming at the SHUMAS Biofarm.

It emerged from the handing-over events that SHUMAS has offered scholarships to some 500 children; 33 student nurses from rural communities have gained from SHUMAS programmes and some 40 persons with special needs have been trained at the SHUMAS Vocational Rehabilitation Centre, Bamenda.

They have also promoted environmental projects in some 35 schools across the country. Ndzerem Stephen took time off during the handing-over ceremonies to salute international cooperation with the UK-based volunteers, "Building Schools for Africa" to thank for financial contributions to realise the projects. Challenges on the way of their humanitarian activities include the lack of operational cost, limited and obsolete working facilities and insufficient coordination vehicles.