Bee-sy Times

 We are Jonas and Lynn, two German-American volunteers currently working for RUDEC. When Joshua told us about the Beekeeping Project, we were fascinated and enthusiastic to push the project forward as much as possible in our 6-week stay in Belo.

The first thing we wanted to do was visit the RUDEC bee farm. Before we could do that, however, we had to build two more beehives that we could take and install on the farm. This process was already really exciting for us as it was our very first time seeing how beehives are made.

Jonas baiting a hive

Lynn baiting 

We were then ready to visit the bee farm. After a 45 minute bumpy motorcycle ride and a walk through the field, we finally arrived. We were amazed how large RUDEC’s piece of land is – and our excitement grew when we saw the 50 beehives that were already scattered on the land. Now came our favorite part, Joshua showed us how the beehives are installed.

Joshua Biating

We then got to “bate” the hives ourselves – the process of waxing the beehives to attract bees to naturally colonize them.

After a long, exhausting day, we drove back home happy and content.

The following week, we got to work. We were motivated to get as many of our family and friends at home to donate a beehive. After making a financial overview of the project, we made an informational flyer about the project as a whole as well as donation options.

We then went on Facebook and spread the word – with success: in the course of 1,5 weeks, over 12 beehives were donated!

In the meantime, we critically noticed how the delicious pure RUDEC honey stood unnoticed in opaque plastic containers without any label whatsoever. Lynn designed an advertisement poster to hang up on the shelves next to the honey. We then both designed new honey labels. Together with Joshua, we drove to Bamenda on the search for better honey containers. After a long search, we finally found what we were looking for and headed home with a huge bag full of containers.

RUDEC Homemade honey

We were very proud of the final outcome.

When we received all the money from the beehive donations, we got to work. After buying all the materials and assembling them, we custom inscribed each of the hives (a new feature we had thought of).

Sadly, we were not able to carry all of the 16 beehives at once to the bee farm, but we started off with two and installed them on the farm.

Donated hives with  personal inscriptions

In our last week in Belo we plan on installing the rest of the donated hives.

Follow this blog as well as ask people to support RUDEC in this project.

RUDEC Cameroon Beekeeping Film Final

We are struggling hard to find our own means to sustainability at RUDEC and suggest that you share this video of our bee farm project

Lynn and Jonas Testimonial for RUDEC Cameroon

 On January 20^th 2016, we, Lynn and Jonas, two German-Americans living in Berlin, travelled to Cameroon. We were had just finished high school and decided to volunteer for three months in an

African country during our gap year before starting university. We wanted to see different parts of Cameroon as well as gain experience from different NGOs, which is why decided to spend half the time in Buea (South-West Region) with an organization and the other six weeks volunteering with RUDEC in Belo.

Upon arriving in Belo, we immediately fell in love with the small rural town. The climate was nice and the hilly landscape was beautiful. We arrived not really knowing what project we were going to work on, yet quickly focused on the beekeeping project: We traveled to the farm three times (45 minute ride) and installed more than 20 beehives, many of which were funded through a fundraising campaign we set into motion.

We greatly enjoyed working with RUDEC because of its close ties to the community and extremely proactive approach: If you think of an initiative that could help the community, nothing is stopping you from starting to realize it, with RUDEC’s help, the next day.

Nonetheless, volunteering in Cameroon, with RUDEC is not for everyone. We think you will love volunteering with RUDEC if you 1) get along well with others in ambigious, real-life situations despite miscommunications and unforeseen challenges and 2) work independently and are intrinsically motivated to make a change. RUDEC will support you, but no one will hold your hand or tell you what to do.

At the writing of this testimonial, international press coverage of Cameroon is nearly exclusively negative and focused on terrorist attacks in Central and Western Africa. These warnings are valid; however they apply only to the northern regions of Cameroon (counterintuitively, the North-West isn’t anywhere near northern Cameroon). Unlike all the western countries we have visited, the Cameroonian military operates many checkpoints within its own territory. If you stay in the North-West, South-West, Central, Littoral or Western regions, it is just about as safe as living in Istanbul, Turkey even though there is fighting in ‘nearby’ Syria. We felt safe at all times – everyone we met, including the military personnel at checkpoints were helpful and welcoming. Nevertheless, you should still keep an eye on any developments before your trip and act with reasonable caution while you are here.

We hope that describing our experiences has helped you come to a decision about whether you want to volunteer with RUDEC or not. Of course, we hope you decide to go to Belo – We would come back any day!

"Belo Beautiful" is Blossoming

                                

In a field of work that can often be frustrating, small successes are a call for celebration. This past week was one of those weeks at RUDEC.

Three months ago, we (Joshua and I) set our focus on expanding access to financial opportunity to more women in Belo. Our main goal was to support the income-generating activities of local women by providing small loans. In addition to that, we wanted to provide an environment in which these women could work together on their own accord to design the framework for their own development. Our hope was that these efforts would work to build the capacity of women—specifically single mothers—to become more economically independent and in better positions to provide for their children.

We identified two groups of women in the village who were interested in participating in the project. In the first month of the project, we met with each group twice a week to evaluate each woman’s business or business idea, determined their eligibility for the loan, and advised the group in creating their own group rules/policies for the loan. The driving force behind each group was the idea that their repayments of the loan would be used to help even more women in the future.

Two months ago we distributed a loan of equal amounts to each woman who agreed to the terms their group had decided on. On the day on the loan distribution, we all communed with one another, and the air was heavy with a sense of unity and hopefulness for what was to come. Each woman made a pledge, not only to herself, but to her fellow sisters who were there to support her in her own endeavors. Appropriately, we decided to name this initiative “Belo Beautiful”. Several group meetings, training workshops, and business consultations later, each group proved its ability to sustain itself. Each group has an active executive board, which manages and records all aspects vital to move the project forward.

This past week marks two months since the distribution of the loans, as well as the women’s first repayment! Each woman (13 in total) paid their first interest-free installment of 6,000 francs. The best news is that enough money was repaid in order to provide two new women with a loan as well.

I am happy that the project has proven to be sustainable thus far. Although I am no longer in Belo to celebrate this step forward with the women, I am celebrating in spirit from afar and looking forward to more good reports. We are now at a group of 15 women and hope to continue to see manageable growth.

Many times, the hard work of Cameroonian women goes unnoticed. Women are arguably the backbone of Cameroon’s agricultural economy, yet hit the glass ceiling of gender-discrimination and societal expectations in many areas of their lives. Much of the reason for women’s struggle to gain income in this agricultural economy has to do with their acute lack of credit and inability to raise enough money to engage in lucrative business. Our vision is make the rural town of Belo a safe-haven of economic opportunity and empowerment for women by highlighting the vital role that women play in society and providing women with access to economic opportunity. It is also our hope that the Belo Beautiful initiative elevates the voices of the hard-working women of Belo and provides them with the tools to activate change in their own lives and community.

RUDEC is back up

 Our website was broken and it was down for some time !!  Now the site is back up and i wish that you all know. See it at www.rudec.org.

Broken or Hacked site of RUDEC

 Our website at www.rudec.org is broken and it is down !! If you wish to contact us then join Joshua Chiamba at chiamba.joshua@gmail.com or our Volunteer Michael Clounie at mclounie@gmail.com for any information....Our website manager says it was hacked and he is looking at how to fix it. Any help ideas would be useful.

Health Care to Orphans

 Since 2008 that we started the orphans project we have had simple sickness but 2015 is special year because Odette Ngong had ankylosis. She was to be operated . We did cried and people came to our support and the operation was successfull.

We are giving thanks to God for the support and care pour on the donors who made us and Odette happy. 

Odette is able to chew now because before she was not able to open her mouth and chew!!!

The second child Harrison Mulong , has being the attached by cellulitis and this has made his foot angle very painful. Before we thought that the leg was broken and we rushed him, to the hospital for a check up and we had an x-ray but it was not broken but as we took him  after 4 days its resulted into a red swollen leg.

 

We had a fight with the family who were for the traditional witch doctor. This was much temptation that we had to withstand and today we are happy that this leg is improving and we are left with a short time to celebration the work of God in the life of Harrison. 

We are also joining Harrison to smile and give thanks to all who supported us especially our volunteer Mme Debbie Bardin, Anto, Louise and all that would be joining to give us more smiles