Beruda Provide End of Year Cheer for the Elderly
END OF YEAR OUTREACH FOR THE ELDERLY PERSONS OF THE BELO VILLAGES, Cameroon (NJANG,FUNDENG,NJINIKEJEM) -SARAH’S PROJECT - BY Philemon Akoni
The year 2020 has been one of the most challenging years both in the global and local context. It was even worst for the elderly of the entire English portions of Cameroon as they already had escalating socio-political crisis that brought a lot of suffering to the poor masses. Judging from this perspective BERUDA through one of its major projects, the “Sponsor a Child Project” and the Sarah’s Project made a move by reaching out to the elderly with both words of encouragement and basic necessities with the objective of making their Christmas season a happy one and to rekindle that spark of hope in them. This affected only three villages of Belo (Njang,Fundeng,& Njinikejem)
Earlier in 2020 over 30 persons above the ages of 75years most of home had one health challenge or the other were reached out to with blankets to keep them warm during the cold nights. Unfortunately this package was not complete as they were not accompanied by some bars of soap to keep them clean due to the unpredictable security conditions that prevailed and partly due to misconception by some of the community persons which was only rectified later.
This December 24th 2020 there is some promising degree of calm that is experienced in the restive Northwest and Southwest Regions of Cameroon which partly made us to decide not only to reach out to the recipients of these blankets with the soap but also some key food items for the festive period (Rice, Palm Oil, Maggi, and some bars of soap) and equally as our donors and partners made the required funds to make this happen available.
In each of these three villages we had earlier reached out to 10 persons with the blankets but to our dismay as we went to each of the villages we had at least four extra persons who were just as meriting as our recipients and we could only pinch out from the initial packages per person just to make everyone go home smiling at least. We simply saw this as a signal that we were doing a great job but at the same time we need to do even more for there are many more vulnerable persons unreached in the communities around the Region.
On a serious note, this set of the population is quite helpless in the face of the ongoing crisis as they can neither escape into the bushes like the youths when danger shows up neither can they even fend for themselves. Stories have been told of some even being victims of stray bullets and fire accidents (burnt hiding inside their huts) due to their poor health and lack of strength to flee for safety. The least we can do for this group is just to show them love through sharing with them some warm clothing, food items and visiting them to tickle that feeling of love within them.
During our outreach we visited some of them right in their homes such as Bobe Bam who is the eldest man in Njinikejem at his 90s who lives alone, in a small mud house which looks very unkempt as everyone has fled for safety elsewhere . He expressed his unending joy with us through his words.
We equally paid a visit to Bobe Stephen Lungle who is unfortunately crippled and Nawain Jeanette Nsang who suffers from a protracted illness. Just like all others most of this folk have one health challenge or the other.
