Putting on My Business Socks

With Celestine freshly rejuvenated from her prayer-marathon (and from eating solid food again), we settled down to business. 

To fill you in, I am here in Cameroon working with a non-profit organization called CEFASE, which stands for Female Circle of Social Action and Mutual Aid.  Don’t worry the acronym works in French. 

Operating since 2008, CEFASE is a women’s organization dedicated to improving the living conditions of the underprivileged in Cameroon.  Their work focuses on capacity building and community development in agriculture, domestic violence, vocational training and health education. 

In English, that means they do things like:

·         Plant new farms and teach modern composting techniques so that rural subsistence farmers can increase their harvest enough to be able to sell in the market

·         Host trainings, seminars and village meetings on women’s rights, domestic violence and solving conflict without violence

·         Offer support, mediation and legal services to domestically abused women

·         Run computer, tailoring and hairdressing trainings for widows, orphans and single mothers

·         Teach classes on clean water, hand hygiene and pit toilet maintenance to rural farmers

·         Support and coordinate trainings on malaria and HIV/AIDs prevention

You may wonder…what is the connection between an orphan school and a women’s organization on the other side of the continent?  The answer is Ann, one of the people who brought me to Africa in the first place. 

Ann, a longstanding contact of Celestine’s whom she met at a social worker conference in Belgium, suggested that it might be beneficial for me to observe the structure and implementation of a well-established rural education program – something common in the field I want to work in and something they are looking into back in Uganda.  And hey…while you are there maybe you could help them with some grant writing too!  I suspect the latter is the real motivation behind sending me here, but either way…I’ll take any excuse for the escape from posho.

So here I am.  Mice and all.  Thanks Ann!

But in truth, CEFASE faces similar challenges (and affinity for capitalization) as KEFRAMA.  Both are philanthropy-reliant organizations that exist in areas where populations have negligible, if any, discretionary income.  But more problematic than that, people in both areas truly do not understand the concept of philanthropy. 

Organizations like CEFASE are an oddity.  While there is an obnoxious abundance of associations and organizations in Cameroon – nearly everyone is a member of several – most of them focus their efforts inward.  Members contribute and then that money is doled out to the members themselves, either as need arises as part of a lottery system. To them, this is charity:  a communal safety-net.

There isn’t the same cynical disdain of philanthropy we see at home:  my gift doesn’t matter, why should I care, I’d rather buy the new iPhone, etc.  Instead, the concept, as we know it, is unheard of to them.  Suffice it say that they don’t see change collection bins on counters, there are no sad bald children commercials on TV, no direct mail solicitations including free return address labels.  They just aren’t exposed to it.

Unfortunately, this means that we are forced to look to the more competitive world of international grant fundraising to support these organizations.  Bad news for tiny non-profits with limited resources (and thus scope of impact) and next to no international name-recognition.

I won’t bore you with the minutiae of grant fundraising, but suffice it to say that most of my time has been spent staring at the swirly loading sign on a variety of websites…cursing in the ineffectiveness of African internet.  Compounding the woefully deficient infrastructure is Celestine’s vigor yet utter lack of understanding the grant world.  Every site with the words “support capacity building” must be investigated thoroughly, despite that many of them are clearly charitable organizations seeking donations themselves.  It’s a slow process….

But we have identified a few grants that are in our wheelhouse, and I have begun the laborious process of agonizing over verbiage on the applications that will likely get only a cursory reading from an intern somewhere.  Remind me…why do I fundraise again?

Oh yeah, because every 20^th ask is successful.  And in those moments, you get to connect people with the passion and ability to people with the means and a belief.  I might be a naïve sucker, but I think it is in these connections that we see the world move forward; tiny baby steps towards a better future.  

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