Auteur/autrice : TimesNews2

With the recent support granted by UNFPA to some 14 GBV survivors who settled in Douala, after running away from the crisis rocking the North-West and South-West Regions of Cameroon, there is hope in the air as they said. “Here in the safe space we live as a family, you can sleep here. Sometimes when I come here and cannot afford to go back home with my baby, I will tell them and they will help me with taxi fare. I got a new house. I thank God and I thank UNFPA. Thanks to LUKMEF and thanks for the support. I will start a petty trade with the 100 kilogrammes bag of flour that I received here because I have been trained by LUKMEF to make cakes. I will later on return to school because I had my GCE Advanced level and I want to study nursing…” Martha said. Martha, aged 21, is one of the 14 Gender-based violence survivors who have benefitted from the support of the United Nations’ Population Fund, UNFPA, through its life-saving project supported by the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations, ECHO. The young mother of a baby boy of close to 8 months has fled from her home town Kumba in the South-West Region due to continuous threats from separatists groups who once kidnapped her father and was only freed after an exchange of a sweet compensation. With the risk of been kidnap one day as the baby cries when gunshots are sprinkled, she was advised by her father to run away at early hours on a Sunday. Martha was warmly welcomed at the Martin Luther King Junior Memorial Foundation, LUKMEF in Douala where she got the necessary support and was referred to a partner health center in Bonamoussadi for the follow-up of her baby. The little money she receives from time to time from her father is not enough to survive in the city of Douala which has an increased standard of living compared to Kumba. Today, Martha says the gloomy episodes of her life are simultaneously fading away thanks to the psychological first aid she received, the timely support granted by UNFPA and her daily discussions at the safe space with other women and girls who have lived bitter adventures in the course of the conflicts plaguing the North-West and South-West Regions. Martha nourishes hopes to return back to school in order to study nursing. Just like Martha, 20-year-old Teclare who is about ending her gestation period shed tears when she received packets of disposable diapers and a carton of vegetable oil as material support. “I didn’t know that there is a place where somebody could attend to us and that someone can easily help me here in Douala. This is because in this Douala for someone to give you only water to drink they will ask you money.” The primiparous who is an orphan fled from Nkwen in the North-West Region and resettled in Douala for some months now with her husband who tried to secure a job as a security agent. Teclare has been striving hard to survive in an environment which she described as hostile and strange to her because she left her home town and her business at the Nkwen market. Teclare heard about the safe space of LUKMEF through one of her neighbours working there. “Since one month that I started coming to this place, many things have changed in my life. With my pregnancy I was unable to go to the hospital because what my husband is doing cannot even take care of me. He is trying to take care of my younger ones to be in school. I’m an orphan of both parents but we are trying to survive. I came here when my pregnancy was almost seven months and from then they started taking care of me and they referred me to a hospital just near here. I made my echography there and since I came across this place I have been feeling myself at home. It is as if I have parents again” she narrated. The beneficiaries of the 18 month life-saving project piloted by UNFPA praised the initiative and requested for its extension. They seized the occasion of an official donation ceremony held on October 19, 2021 to recount their stories, the constant threats and the trauma they went through in their respective areas. Siti Batoul Oussein, UNFPA’s Resident Representative, and other staff members from UNICEF, OCHA and ECHO, the European Union’s humanitarian branch, communed with these GBV survivors in Douala. This was part of field mission held from the 18th to the 22nd of October, 2021 with the aim to monitor and assess key activities carried-out so far within the humanitarian and life-saving gender-based violence project that runs from December 2020 to April 2022 in the North-West, South-West, Littoral and West Regions. Elise Kenimbeni

Contrary to ongoing threats and unhealthy comments, the Ngul Be Tara product of Dr Marlyse Paule Mbezele Peyou has been approved by Cameroon’s government and Nigeria’s national agency for food and drug administration and control (NAFDAC). In order to tackle the covid-19 pandemic that has threaten lives worldwide, several scientists came-out with a number of solutions and responses that will help to save the population. In Cameroon, one of these discoveries revealed to the public was the healing potion of Dr Marlyse Paule Mbezele Peyou Ndi-Samba. The healing COVID-19 potion coined in the ewondo dialet: “Ngul Be Tara”, meaning the power of ancestors is among the miraculous traditional potions which have save lives in Cameroon during the outbreak of the pandemic. The astute scientist and biochemistry lecturer working with the faculty of medicine and biomedical sciences of the University of Yaounde I has so far brought hope in the lives of many who were affected by the pandemic and has made the pride of her home country, Cameroon. With its positive records, government has approved the local sale of the Ngul Be Tara by granting a 5 year license to the team of Dr Marlyse Paule Mbezele Peyou. In a correspondence addressed to the leader of the RIRCO consortium on September 30, 2021, public health minister, Dr Manaouda Malachie officially informed that the Ngul Be Tara kit, the Netko, Binther and Immuno boost were approved on the market. In Nigeria, esteem was granted earlier to the product of the biochemist. A four year license was granted to the RIRCO consortium by thenational agency for food and drug administration and control (NAFDAC). Inspite of all these recognitions and approval, the indigenous coronavirus product has been degraded, and besides, grudges have been nursed against Dr Peyou, the brainbox behind the miraculous product. She has been on the grill for the past months. On her part, Dr Marlyse Paule Peyou has in an open letter castigated all her detractors. She said: “To the nutcases, destroyers, jealous, seekers of glory … I have already passed my knowledge on to several students who make the Ngul be Tara. So attack me, it won’t change that. We are many. I’m not in any political party, I don’t know how to play politics, I don’t know how to be a minister, I never told anyone that I want to be a minister, because I can make an impact in the laboratory. My dream is to have a laboratory as powerful as those in which I was trained in France and the United States of America. For those who wish to see me in Business, I say thank you for your trust. I beg you just to wish that laboratories which can manufacture antidotes, effective and safe vaccines or other powerful drugs are installed in all African Universities, worthy of the name, especially in all the departments of biochemistry. That all laboratories of all the technical sectors be equipped and maintained (…).” Dr Peyou Marlyse Ndi, PHD holder in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Washington State University, USA and a Master II in Public Health from France’s université de Loraine, ESP de Nancy has challenged all her detractors to invent quality products for the well-being of the people instead of unfruitful fighting. “For these destructive networks that employ our crazy apprentice negro brothers of traitorous house: we are waiting for you on the ground to see what you invent for African posterity!!! In return, we always hit back no matter how long it takes, and wherever the perpetrators are. It is a promise. For your guidance, half of the equipment that makes the Ngul be Tara was donated by an American university several years ago. The Ngul be Tara manufacturing team also includes people from many nations of the world including young Americans! The team is of course led by your humble Cameroonian servant that I am. In the meantime, Ngul be Tara, the powerful anticovid-19 continues to prevent and eradicate COVD-19 across the world, whatever the variant, whether vaccinated or not, Ngul be Tara does not discriminate, he helps every human being even enemies who consume it in secret. Jealousy has not yet devoured you. You will lose more than your sleep!” She added. In a meantime, Dr Peyou and team have embarked on the project to plant at least a million fruit trees and medicinal plants by 2025, another challenge to improve traditional researches. Registered in 2012 in Cameroon, Reece international Research consortium (RIRCO) works in close collaboration with key ministries. Elise Kenimbeni

As part of her contact tour in Cameroon, newly appointed Regional Director of UNFPA’s West and Central office (WCARO) met in Yaounde, top government officials and strategic partners. On her top agenda’s visit, Mrs Argentina Matavel Piccin met with Prime Minister, Head of government Joseph Dion Ngute and later on followed series of courtesy exchanges with the ministers in charge of economy, planning and regional development, Alamine Ousmane Mey and Mounouna Foutsou of youth affairs. Visiting Regional Director of UNFPA’s WCARO in a strategic meeting held on October 07, 2021 at the Yaounde Hilton hotel recognized the long path undertaken so far by Cameroon’s government in support of all the various actions and developmental plans carried-out by the United Nations’ agency notably since the 1994 ICPD summit in Cairo, Egypt. Mrs Argentina Matavel Piccin equally acknowledged the unconditional support of Cameroon in the implementation of the 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs), the demographic dividend’s concept and its components. While praising government’s continuous efforts in the fight against gender inequalities, maternal and infant mortalities as well as gender based violence in communities, the Regional Director called on collective and concrete actions. She said:“We are facing a situation that requires concrete, collective, urgent and large-scale actions. We cannot please ourselves, be happy and limit ourselves to scattered and isolated actions. It is based on this conviction that Sustainable Development Goals, which constitute a compass for the international community, prescribe that, effective partnerships between governments, the private sector and civil society organizations are necessary. They must put people and the planet at the center of concerns. UNFPA, the United Nations agency for Sexual and Reproductive Health, is committed to this culture of partnership which allows our organization to integrate all components of modern society into its operations.” Added to her appeal, she underscored the fact that, UNFPA remains a key partner with open doors and ears to any action that could impact on the population’s well-being. “This is an opportunity to reiterate to the government and the partners here present that UNFPA remains committed and determined to offer the best of its talent and expertise so that the demographic dividend is a reality in Cameroon, thanks to the development of its human capital.” She said. After the exchange with partners, Mrs Argentina Matavel met with media practitioners in a brief session dedicated to highlight key points of her contact tour in Cameroon. Speaking to media men, the Regional Director said UNFPA and her different partners are committed to tackle by all means unmet needs in family planning, maternal deaths, gender based violence (GBV), child marriages etc. which are on the road map of the transformative results to be achieved by 2030. On the question to know how she will engage youth associations and movements who have so far been key contributors on strategic plans set up by UNFPA, Mrs Argentina said nothing cannot be carried-out or achieved without the participation of young people. She outlined the fact that young people play a pivotal role in UNFPA’s programme. “As I mentioned before, all my three zeros that is: Zero unmet need for family planning, zero preventable maternal deaths, zero gender-based violence and harmful practices. These results we are looking for cannot be achieved unless the young people themselves adopt them. We centre our programmes on young people. And of all these three, I will put the family planning at the centre because often times, when young people are not in control of their bodies, this can impact on their development.” In her statements, Mrs Argentina also mentioned the fact that there is need to fully implement comprehensive sexuality education in schools through-out the young people who will later on positively impact their communities. The press conference coordinated alongside UNFPA’s Resident Representative, Siti Batoul Oussein equally gave root to clear indications on the missions of the UN agency in charge of population issues. Mrs Argentina Matavel Piccin stressed on the fact that, UNFPA as an agency does not carry-out direct sensitizations on the field. UNFPA for palpable results works with civil society organizations, traditional and religious leaders, youth movements, female associations and platforms, the media just to name these few. Elise Kenimbeni