After just a month after my arrival here in Maroua, I feel more and more comfortable with the city and with all of the potentials for work opportunities. For a few weeks, I felt overwhelmed by all that needed to be done and could be done here but clearly realizing my own skills, limits, and interests at the same time.

What has offered the most clarity has been an introduction to an organization called Education Fights AIDS (EFA) International, known by everyone here as just “effah”. EFA was formed by former Peace Corps volunteers, with the mission to help HIV-positive youth. Here in the Far North Region of Cameroon, they have created a network of groups for young people living with HIV and AIDS, providing trainings and other opportunities for the groups to promote their healthy future. Each youth group works to support its members, raise money in case of health or personal need, and also engage in income generating projects to benefit each of the members.

EFA’s current Executive Director and the first Peace Corps volunteer to conceive of the organization’s concept, Drew, has been in town for the last week or so to check in on all of the projects, determine the needs of the groups and strategically plan for the next year. This became a great opportunity to appreciate the roots of the organization and understand its current strengths and challenges. While Drew and a dynamic board of directors coordinate the funding and development the U.S. side, Cameroon staff Alim and Amada coordinate everything that happens in Cameroon. I have been assigned to help to start a Peer Education group composed of representatives from each of the five youth groups that EFA supports. Two of these organizations need extra assistance with their income generating projects and management of their group, so I will be their Technical Advisor, helping them to generate sustainable revenue but also to strengthen their organization to be democratically driven by the members.

I feel tremendously lucky to have been introduced to this project and especially to Alim. He is a motivated, dynamic leader, motivator, mediator, and visionary. It seems as if there is no end to his energy or generosity!

It has also been remarkable to meet the EFA-sponsored groups and to see all the AMAZING things that they are up to! For example, AWALLA is a group in the village of Amchidé on the Nigeria-Cameroon border town where everything is traded and everything is for sale. It is understandable how the HIV-rate is elevated where engaging in multiple sexual partnerships has become the norm for these men and women as they try to meet their economic needs. AWALLA is working tirelessly on their income generating projects. With the revenue, they assure that each member gets a broad-based antibiotic, Bactrim (the generic name is cotrimoxizole), to ward off potential opportunistic infections. One of the greatest challenges the group faces is accessing health care. The nearest health center where they can get their monthly supply of ARVs is 3,000CFA (about six dollars) motorcycle ride away, a cost disproportionate to their humble incomes. They are advocating for and with their local health post to grant them a status that would qualify the health post to stock the medicine.

Their sense of solidarity is remarkable. They had a member who was in a terrible accident involving an explosion of a Nigerian oil tanker. She has burns over a large portion of her body. Not only did the group mobilize to assure her proper medical care, but they also held their meetings at her house during her recovery so that she could still be included in all of the activities.

Another EFA-trained group (unnamed for confidentiality reasons) demonstrated their solidarity when one of their members was sent to prison for a confessed petty crime. Instead of turning their back on their guilty member, they mobilized to assure his medical care while he is incarcerated with the hope that other HIV-positive prisoners will also benefit from access to medical services that could likely add years to their lives. Cameroonian prisons are generally not hygienic and sexual abuse among inmates has been reported and the implications of an HIV-positive prisoner risk becoming significant if the individual’s care is not monitored and maintained. The group has worked tirelessly to help their fellow group member access the ARVs he needs. Their collective action has made the prison administration consider changing its policy on HIV treatment for prisoners.

I am excited to work with EFA, and look forward to getting to better know the groups that they support in my first task: redeveloping the Peer Education training module.

-Caitlyn Bradburn, Peace Corps Volunteer

Tags: antibiotics, ARVs, income generation, infrastructure, Maroua, News from Cameroon, peace corps, peer education, peer mentoring