$26,000 grant will provide loans to women in Dschang!

On April 7th, we will begin teaching our first Women's Entrepreneurial Program (WEP) in Dschang. Twenty-seven women are signed up for the course, which will cover basic business skills such as bookkeeping, marketing and feasability studies.

This class also marks the beginning of our microfinance program.  Since the launch of the WEP in 2007, we have offered grants to a number of women in each class.  These grants have helped launch and expand successful businesses, ranging from hairstyling boutiques to pig farming.

However, since the beginning of 2010 we have been planning ways to make this program sustainable.  For the program in Dschang, we have partnered with the Groupement d'Appui de Developpement Durable (GADD) and three different microfinance institutions.  The curriculum has been expanded to include visits to our partner banks and guidance through the process of applying for, and repaying, a loan. 

Thanks to a generous grant of $26,000 from The Flanigan Family Foundation, Breaking Ground will provide the capital for loans to 20 women in 2011. We have negotiated an extremely low interest rate and will work closely with each woman to support her as she repays. As the women repay their loans, this will go towards capital that can then be leant out to other WEP graduates. In 4 years time, this program will be truly sustainable.

This new program has been in the works for almost a year and we are thrilled to see it finally launching.  Thank you Flanigan Family Foundation!

The Women of Nkong

In January, Breaking Ground ran a pilot Women's Entrepreneurial Program, in the village of Nkong.  The class, taught by Peace Corps volunteer Jessica Veldman and Agronomy Engineer Sandrine Djomo, covered basic entrepreneurial ideas and began a conversation about crop diversification and better farming practices. 

In the coming months, Paul, working with Sandrine and other agricultural specialists, will work to adapt our Women's Entrepreneurial Program, which currently serves an urban population, to the needs of Nkong and the neighboring villages. Once our plans are finalized, we will begin fundraising in earnest. 

The women of Nkong are enthusiastic and energized and we are excited to continue to work with them. We hope that the dialogue started this January will be ongoing and that this class will be the first of many.

President Biya: "Agriculture Is Our Wealth."

Earlier this month, Program Director Paul Zangue, attended the National Agro-Pastoral Conference in Ebolowa. The event was the first of its kind since 1988.

This conference showcased Cameroon's agricultural potential and provided an opportunity for farmers and law makers to discuss plans for the future.  President Paul Biya gave the keynote speech, in which he expressed the need to increase Cameroon's productivity, especially sugar and  palm oil.  He outlined the various challenges faced by Cameroonian farmers, all of which sounded very familiar: poor roads for transporting crops, low yields, and lack of access to improved, high yield strains.

President Biya pledged financial support to the modernization of Cameroon's agricultural sector.  We only hope that his support takes into account the advice of the Rainforest Alliance, and goes towards financing sustainable, environmentally sound programs, that empower the farmers.

Breaking Ground Turns Five!

 

On January 12, 2006, I stepped off a plane in Douala and was engulfed by the city’s thick humidity. I was fresh out of college, spoke mediocre French, and I had no idea that the months ahead of me would so profoundly change my life, or the lives of so many others.

For many of you, the story of what happened next is a familiar one. (Those of you who haven’t heard it can read it here and watch it here.) In short, I didn’t go to Cameroon to start Breaking Ground. Five years ago this past Friday, I sent an email out asking for donations to help Doumbouo’s primary school. I didn’t see the project as anything larger than itself: a way to help one community fulfill their dream of improving their children’s school. “Breaking Ground” was simply the name of the blog I’d created to tell my friends and family about the project and encourage them to contribute.

Donations began flooding in, and on January 31st, I learned that my parents had received over $1000 in just two days from our family members, friends, and neighbors. So when, exactly, was Breaking Ground born? For me, the moment is clear. Exactly five years ago today, sitting in a dusty, archaic “cyber” cafe, I opened my inbox to read that a colleague of my father’s, whom I had neither met nor heard of, was sending a check for $100. Suddenly, and to my surprise, the project in Doumbouo had grown beyond just a personal undertaking. By the merging of my host community’s enthusiasm and determination with the compassion and generosity of people who were, to me, perfect strangers, something bigger had begun. That something was Breaking Ground.

Five years ago, the news of that $100 donation reduced me to tears in the cyber. While a lot has changed since then, I am still touched by the news of every single contribution. Though we have received funding from two foundations, and are pursuing further grants, our community of individual donors is still the bedrock of the organization. As our circle of supporters grows to include individuals from all around the globe, we have begun to expand our work with new agricultural programs. In everything we do, our focus is long-term sustainability and grassroots community participation. We have big plans for the next five years.

For all we've done and all we hope to do, thank you for making our work possible.

On est ensemble (Together),

Breaking Ground partners with RIDEV

Breaking Ground has formally signed a partnership with the Research Institute for Development. Based in Bamenda, Cameroon, RIDEV is an NGO dedicated to using a participatory approach to ascertain communities’ most pressing needs and identify appropriate solutions.

In the last year RIDEV has helped us assess community mobilization and evaluated all our previous projects. In the future we will be working with RIDEV to design project selection criteria and integrate capacity building into our community partnerships.