3rd Annual National Girls’ Forum

Sunday, April 27, 2014

In all the excitement of losing my home and trying to figure out my future, I forgot all about writing a post about the 3^rd Annual National Girls’ Forum (NGF).  This was my second year on the committee planning and executing it, and other than some minor hiccups, I thought it went very well.  Each year we’ve made changes to the Forum; it’s awesome to be able to see something that you work on evolve. 

The way the Forum works is that we invite 30 Peace Corps Volunteers (PCVs), 30 Host Country National (HCN) counterparts, and 30 girls for a three-day conference.  The biggest change this year was the schedule for the girls.  The first year, only a couple of girls were invited; the second year, 30 girls were invited but had the same sessions as the counterparts.  This year, we had the girls and counterparts separate almost the entire time, and tailored the girls’ sessions to them. 

The theme this year was “A Future for Girls.”  All of the girls were mostly in Life Skills sessions, talking and learning about issues like self esteem, love, and role models.  The counterparts and most of the PCVs, meanwhile, were in sessions on how to bring positive projects to their towns and villages, including finding and using resources, community needs assessments, and money management.  There was a great discussion on the theme as well. 

I was really happy with the sessions for the counterparts this year, which is where I spent my time.  Last year, we chose presenters from among the participants, usually PCVs and HCNs together.  That meant that we had some great presentations and some that fell completely flat.  This year, we asked people that we knew were excellent presenters with a lot of experience to come specifically, and only HCNs this time.  We think that Cameroonians get a lot more out of presentations done by other Cameroonians than ones done by PCVs.  We also made a lot more of an effort to make sure that we had either both a Francophone and an Anglophone presenting together, or someone to translate. 

Though I wasn’t in the girls’ sessions, they sounded like they were having a great time.  We could hear their cheering from across the hall, and whenever I went over there it just looked like they were having great conversations.  We had to keep asking PCVs to go back to the HCN sessions – everyone wanted to hang out in the fun sessions. 

My main role again this year was working on the monitoring and evaluation for the Forum.  We had the HCNs and girls’ take (different) pre-tests and post-tests to see how much they actually learned.  We also had the take daily surveys, rating each session, and an overall survey for the Forum.  Unfortunately, I had… stomach issues… for the whole Forum, culminating on the last day, so I didn’t get to see the very end.  I haven’t been able to finish entering all the data yet either, it is waiting for me in Yaoundé.  What I have looked at has all been really positive; everyone really liked the first half of the Forum at least, and from what I heard they did the rest too.

Everyone had positive things to say; the comment that I heard the most is that the Forum seemed a lot more focused this year.  At the end, I was told that some of the girls even cried because they didn’t want it to be over.  I think that the NGF is a great barometer for the Youth Development (YD) program in general.  Both have just finished their third years, and both are making amazing progress.  Though work can be incredibly frustrating here (get ready for a story in my next post), it feels great to be involved in the building of the program.  I think that for both NGF and YD, there has been a pronounced positive trajectory, and I’m glad to be a part of it. 

The Closure of Guider

It finally happened. 

For those of you who haven’t heard, Guider, my home for the past year and a half, has been closed.  Peace Corps will no longer operate there, I won’t be replaced (as I wanted to be), and I will have to move months before I planned. 

Boko Haram struck again.  The third kidnapping and we’re out. 

The first was a French family in Waza in the Extreme North more than a year ago.  It’s about as far north as you can get in Cameroon.  The second was a French priest in Mokolo, about halfway up the Extreme North but still close to the border.  That was maybe half a year ago, and not very far from us.  The third is a Canadian nun and a couple of Italians from just outside of Maroua very recently.  The reports I’ve heard have said it was between 15 and 40 km from Maroua, which makes it 2-3 hours from us. 

I don’t blame the Peace Corps or the Embassy for closing us.  If you have not been keeping up with Boko Haram, whose name means Western Education is Sacrilege, you should.  They have been operating for years now, are gaining in power, and operate throughout several countries in the region, including Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Cameroon, and Mali.  Their attacks have been getting bolder and have been penetrating places in Southern Nigeria and Cameroon that they never have before.  They have burned hundreds of villages and raped, killed or displaced thousands of people.  There are entire regions that the Nigerian government have lost or are losing control of, but the only time that most Westerners hear about Boko Haram is when a fellow Westerner is kidnapped. 

Each kidnapping in Cameroon, the only open attacks in the country, has moved further south and further into the country.  Each one has gotten closer to Guider, and the last couple of kidnappings were only a few hours away.  While I don’t feel unsafe, I can understand why we would need to be moved.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t really make it any easier. 

Guider is a great town, and I have loved it since the moment I got there.  While I have had my share of rough patches during my service, they were never connected with Guider.  The town is beautiful and the people are kind, calm, and welcoming.  Despite how dry it is the streets are lined with trees.  Every sunset turns the sky and my entire house pink.  The vast majority of the people have treated me like a son, brother, or friend since I got there.  My work there has been great, and a lot of it has been meaningful and sustainable.  Guider is a fairly large place with more than 40,000 people in the main town, yet I have never felt more welcomed and a part of a community in my life. 

I’ll miss walking through town and the market, greeting everyone I see.  I’ll miss going over to my post mates’ houses, hanging out with them or their concession families.  I’ll miss giving and receiving random gifts of fruit with my neighbor.  I’ll miss our favorite hangouts, the people we spent time with, and all of the made-up names we gave to streets and bars.  Both of my post mates and I have celebrated the good times and shared the bad with the people of Guider, and none of us wants to leave. 

I have no right to compare my experiences with others that have been affected by terrorism.  My friends and family are safe and my home in America is not in jeopardy.  Though I have been forced to leave my home in Guider, I have other places I can go and people who can help me.  That being said, I still feel displaced.  I have a new post that I will eventually move to, but I will undoubtedly be homeless for the next few months, staying in cases (transit houses) and with friends. 

I think if you ask the average Westerner who Boko Haram is, they would have no clue – it’s just another terrorist group making people suffer in a part of the world that they don’t need to worry about.  Yet everyday, that terrorist group and others like it are killing, raping, torturing, and displacing people.  Our indifference only goes to give them more power.  I don’t have the solutions for how to fix this, but it’s wrong that we just ignore it.  I think I heard it best when I was watching Boondock Saints (though we should probably take a different route than they did). 

“Now, we must all fear evil men.  But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.”