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REPORT OF SUPPORT AND EMPOWERMENT OF VULNERABLE PERSONS FOUNDATION (SEV)

PRESENTED BY: SR.  CAROLINE NANYI ACHA (COORDINATOR) 2021

1. INTRODUCTION

Support and Empowerment of Vulnerable Persons (SEV) is a charitable, religious, socio-pastoral, socio-economic, and educational charitable organization that takes care of the vulnerable. As a mission, SEV seeks to love and serve defenseless persons by offering equal opportunities to all and supporting those most vulnerable in our communities. SEV Foundation was founded by Sr. Jackie Atabong a member of the congregation of the Sisters of St. Therese of the Child Jesus Buea in Cameroon. The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Therese was founded in 1963 by Bishop Jules Peeters, MHM to serve the needs of the church, raise the dignity of women, and attend to the needs of marginalized people in society.

2.1 PROVISION OF SHELTER (SEV CENTER)

The girls at the Center with their sanitary needs

Our center is located in Logbaba a neighborhood in Douala II Sub Division in Cameroon. We are using a rented apartment. Currently, we have 12 girls we are providing shelter to, in the center who are under the day-to-day supervision of a caregiver. The Center is open only to girls since girls are mostly vulnerable and at a very high risk of abuse than boys. We pay attention to street children, orphans, and girls whose parents cannot take care of them to the detriment of their future. One of our greatest desires at the Center is to always reunite the children with their closest families as we keep on tracing families of children who have nowhere to go.

UNHCR Visit at the Center

Due to limited space at the center, we support other girls and boys by providing rent, feeding, healthcare, and sanitation needs besides their various schools and workshops where they are sponsored to acquire skills.

From 2018 to date, we have hosted a total of 19 girls at the center. We provide all the necessary physiological needs (Food, healthcare, sanitary items among others) to the girls we provide shelter at the center as spelled out in the following areas:

2.2 EDUCATIONAL SUPPORT

Some of the children we sponsor in school

For Support and Empowerment of Vulnerable Persons, we give opportunity to boys and girls to go to school. We support them with school fee payments, purchase their school needs as well as follow up on their studies. This year, 2021, supported 171 children, (62 Children in Nursery school, 72 in primary school, 33 in secondary school 2 at the higher education level II in Vocational Training.)

 

 2.3 HEALTH CARE PROVISION

 

One of our beneficiaries in the hospital

SEV goes beyond education to ensure quality health care is also provided to the vulnerable in the community. Often, we help either to pay hospital bills for individuals who have no means to do so or provide a proportion of the bill. This year, 2020/2021, we have intervened in 02 cases of appendicitis operation, malaria, typhoid and follow up on 03 terminally ill cases.

 

 

 

2.4 VOCATIONAL TRAINING

Training in hair  dressing

We have some vulnerable cases who either are not interested in formal education or are school dropouts. As this is concerned so far from 2020, we have supported 04 girls in our sewing and hair-dressing skills department.

 

 

2.5 MORAL, SPIRITUAL AND PSYCHOSOCIAL SUPPORT

Girls at the center after a counselling session

 Most of the girls who come to the SEV center are traumatized and stressed, often due to abuse or the effects of the ongoing war in the Anglophone Regions. We have developed a holistic approach to our intervention, prioritizing the mental, moral, and spiritual well-being of our beneficiaries. SEV employs a trained counselor/social worker who focuses on the psychological needs of these traumatized individuals, particularly those at the center.

  1. OUR SUSTAINABILITY PLAN

We currently operate a small provision store and have a grinding machine for food ingredients to raise funds that support our activities. We are continually exploring ways to develop more sustainable initiatives that will ensure we can consistently meet the needs of the many people who come to us now and then.

4 CHALLENGES

  1. We have many vulnerable cases that we cannot address due to limited resources.
  2. Limited shelter space (Center) to accommodate more vulnerable persons.
  3. Insufficient beds, kitchen utensils, and furniture for our center
  4. Difficulties in running the center (rents, electricity bills, water bills, feeding, health care bills and maintenance)
  5. Lacked reliable means of transportation to carry out our activities specially to take our beneficiaries to hospitals, especially during emergencies

5 WAY FORWARD

  1. To rent a bigger center with beds and furniture to accommodate the greater number of people we meet each day and, in the future, construct a center.
  2. A sustainable activity like poultry or animal farming to raise funds for our activities
  3. Assistance for the provision of feeding, health, and educational needs for our beneficiaries and more vulnerable persons who are in need.
  4. Construction of a nonprofit educational boarding school, primary and secondary, solely for Anglophone displaced children from the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon, which can contain at least 1.000 displaced children.