SEPFO ANNUAL REPORT

About SEPFO

SABINELLY PHILANTHROPIC FOUNDATION (SEPFO) Cameroon is a non- profit, non – religious, non – governmental organization created in 2003 and governed by Cameroon’s 1990 Law on Associations. It is a child and youth centred organization working for the plight of underprivileged children and rural based youths. SEPFO give priority to the girl child. The organization started its activities in 2003. The founders of the organization had the holistic development of children and young people especially young girls in mind when conceiving ideas for the organization. As a way of fostering this development the organization has come up with a number of projects (with precise missions) aimed at instilling skills in these target groups.

The present day projects of the organization include;

- Searchlight project (Charity School)

- Vocational Training in Dressmaking/design,

- Computer Training

- Scholarship grants

- HIV/AIDS and Adolescent Reproductive Health Education

- Farming

MISSION STATEMENT

Helping to change the lives Of orphans and vulnerable childrenthrough Education, Training and Service.

VISION STATEMENT

The goal for this program is to bring up orphaned and needy children by finding ways and means of meeting their, physical, spiritual and social needs and reaching out to all the children with love and compassion. The end result is to raise reliable responsible, resourceful and productive citizens through providing and facilitating the education, instruction, training and equipping with skills to the children.

MOTTO

“Every Child Deserves a Future”

PROJECTS

  • SEARCHLIGHT Project: This programme operates under the appellation of SEARCHLIGHT Nursery and Primary school with the mission of promoting quality basic education through value based education. SEARCHLIGHTSCHOOL was created in 2006 on the one hand, to provide quality basic education to the underprivileged children who cannot attend private educational establishments where the quality of education is guaranteed but the fee is out of the reach of most ordinary Cameroonian parents.And also to correct some errors of the Public /Government school system which is highly examination centred, with crowded classrooms and no particular attention paid to the slow learners. SEARCHLIGHT therefore provides quality and affordable education to children. The programme recorded tremendous growth in 2009. The enrolment of the school moved up from 256 in 2009 to 450in 2010. The number of teaching staff moved from 7 in 2009 to 15 in 2010 giving an average of 30 kids per teacher. All the teachers went through six pedagogic seminars before start of this academic year to equip them with the philosophy of handling children. The scheme of work from the ministry of basic education is being followed.

i)SEARCHLIGHT PROJECT ACTIVITIES: Effective teaching and evaluation of the kids took place during the year thanks to the support of our qualified and trained staff. Pedagogy seminars were organized by inspectorate of Basic education,Living Values, to improve on the teaching skills of the teachers, especially in the area of reading, mathematics, arts and general teaching.These pedagogic seminars were really needed because close to 42% of the kids especially those who were transferred from other schools to Searchlight had enormous difficulties in reading.

SNPS staffs also participated atBilingualism seminar, attended a workshop on language use and their situation. There was also provincial seminar for head teachers which our HT participated. All teachers of SNPS have registered with Manyu Teachers Association, where they partake in their by monthly activities like seminars on how to set examination questions, funerals of departed colleagues, and financial contributions towards events. It had been a very difficult school year, always fighting to meet with the challenges of modern learning techniques.The management always fought with lazy/late coming staffs. In this respect two staffs were dismissed on recommendation by the new headteacher. Computer software has been introduced into primary education, in this regards we have employed one computer teacher who takes computer lessons for the whole primary and nursery classes. Agriculture was also introduced fully this academic year with the school obtaining a Poultry farm with 100 birds reared, to solve the problem of malnutrition and reduce the high cost of protein food in Mamfe area during rainy season. , making foodstuff available to them for feeding and orientating them to acquire a professional career will help reduce the possibility of most of kids in Searchlight school becoming armed robbers, prostitutes and drug addicts especially those already in the street.

A school farm was also set-up to this effect. Three hectars of land was cleared, tilled and crops like vegetables, maize, pine apples, peper, plantain suckers, paw paw were planted, and harvest is used in the school to reduce high cost of feeding the children, especially as we spent up to 25 Euro a day just to feed the children.

STATISTICAL DATA ON PUPILS ENROLMENT FOR THE SCHOLATIC YEAR 2010/2011 AS AT SEPTEMBER 15/2010

CLASS / GIRLS / BOYS / ORPHANS / PAYING KIDS / TOTAL
NURSERY 1 A / 25 / 23 / 20 / 28 / 48
NURSERY 1 B / 12 / 10 / 6 / 16 / 22
NURSERY 2 / 20 / 34 / 38 / 16 / 54
PRIMARY 1 A / 18 / 19 / 15 / 22 / 37
PRIMARY 1 B / 17 / 13 / 20 / 10 / 30
PRIMARY 2 / 23 / 36 / 30 / 29 / 59
PRIMARY 3 / 35 / 27 / 35 / 27 / 62
PRIMARY 4 / 20 / 24 / 23 / 21 / 44
PRIMARY 5 / 21 / 23 / 20 / 24 / 44
PRIMARY 6 / 10 / 10 / 10 / 10 / 20
TOTAL / 205 / 215 / 217 / 203 / 420

ADDITIONAL COURSES OFFERED THIS ACADEMIC YEAR.

-Computer software ( new in Cameroon syllabus for primary schools)

-Agriculture ( small scale backyard farming for nutritive sustainability)

-Sports ( football, handball, high jump, swimming, for our school participates in National schools competition FENASCO GAMES)

-Arts and Crafts (pupils of our school equally shall compete with kids of other school in South West Region for national Arts competition.

-Music( Music is part of extra lessons to kids)

-Remedial Reading program for slow learners.

ii)The SEARCHLIGHTSCHOOLis now operating in its own permanent site with two classrooms already erected. Classes six and four do study at the new site. The construction work continious, as our objectives is to raise another four classrooms this academic year, enabled by Elvis and SEPFO Cameroon on one hand, the PTA. In the same light, It’s unfortunate that the prizes of cement and other building materials have skyrocketed- in Mamfe. We are in desperate need of this classrooms, as we continue to request for sponsorships both in companies and organisations in Cameroon

iii)Corner room: This is a specialized learning facility where the teacher can interact on a one-too-one basis with a pupil who has problem in class. Here the teacher can easily identify the needs of the individual pupil. Some pupils benefited a lot from this facility as could be measured by their level of performance in class. We are in need of more materials in the corner room.Our kids also took part in the kids corner inter school competition where they won 8 activities out of 12.

iv)Remedial Reading Programme: The program continious help slow learners. Emphasis is mostly placed on reading skills to facilitate the study of other subject. All the teachers are involved panelled by the headteacher

v)The Kitchen

Despite the scarcity of food items which made at times prices of food stuff to rise indiscriminately, with the advent of the school farm and poultry the cook managed the kitchen very well,

Food is served twice daily, local tea and lemon juice is served with sand wish in the morning, and at 11.00 am launch is served, it varies per days, jellof rice, plantains and vegetables, cocoyams and sauce.

vi)FENASCO GAMES.

Searchlight school is participating in inter-schools games, like football, Handball boys and girls, where they defeated mile one government school last Friday, other games as shot-put, long-put, high-jump, basket balls, and inter school quiz. were participated.

GRADUATION

The government, education stake holders, PTA and parents witnessed the graduation of 46 kids from nursery two. Amongst the many activities of the day was speeches, singing of the national anthem in French and English, rhymes; sketches, Debate, ballet dance, fashion parade, award of prizes, award of certificates, photographs, refreshment, sharing of the graduation cake, and closing remark from the Divisional Officer for Manyu. It was indeed a successful event.

  • VOCATIONAL TRAINING CENTRE

Created in 2007, to equip rural based underprivileged youths and street children with the necessary skills to help them integrate better in the society. It provided practical employable skills to this group of individuals in dressmaking, and computer knowledge. It had 3 trainees mostly from villages. The centre as of now is still requesting for funding to purchase more sewing machines and computers, cooking machines, and a construction of a separate hall for handicraft centre.

  • COMPUTER TRAINING

Computer training is compulsory in Searchlight school, it exists to bridge the ICT gab in our community. The training in ICT programmes is being introduced to teachers, kids and young girls within Searchlight project. New programmes such as Secretarial Computing and Administrative computing comprising the application programmes and information management and communication courses were introduced to make the trainees suited for common enterance examination and First school Leaving certificate Examination. In as much as ICT training remains a luxury in Cameroon, youths gradually understand the importance of this training. This explains the increased enrolment. Two more used computers were acquired. To boost this, SEPFO intends to integrate ONE CHILD ONE LAPTOP program; so that all the kids of searchlight can own a computer by 2011 academic year. We are requesting for more used computers to equip our laboratory, for more theory is done than practicals, because of insufficient computers.

  • Disability Program

With the help of some volunteers, the disability program has greatly accelerated in 2009. 02 handicapped children identified by SEPFO are currently receiving long term treatment at the full GospelMissionHospital, enabled by Sandra bossee. She privately pays for Enow, the major concerns, feeding, clothing, medicat

On and general care.

Agriculture

A school farm of about two hectares was cleared and some basic food like vegetables, yams, beans maize, egusi, pine apples, peper, cocoyams and plantains were planted. The teachers and kids of class three to five were responsible for the farm; Harvest was used to feed the children especially with the increase of prices of basic food items like rice, oil, and meat/fish.

Equally a school poultry was set up with 100 chicks raised for food. We hope to increase our production this year so that the birds can equally lay eggs. Feases which comes from the poultry is used as manure for the vegetable farm. It should be noted that birds feed is equally expensive in mamfe, that not withstanding the poultry farm served greatly in the school, some money was equally raised from the sell of chickens in December.

Visitors

SEPFO last year received visitors from Ministry of Social Affairs Yaounde, to control SEARCHLIGHTproject and special attention was placed on orphans ans vulnerable children. Other control team from ministry of basic education were present to control the implementation of new pedagogic approach to teaching. General hygiene and sanitation of the school was controlled, teachers, welfare too. Fabrice and Bauke from LIVE BUILT also visited the school, all were impressed and wished to support in our construction project. We in the same light implore more volunteers to come to searchlight school and support us in teaching, capacity building , arts and crafts or in building the school.

Management and Staff

The sustainability of every organization is highly dependent on the management and staff of the organization who put into effective practice the policies of that organization laid down by its Board of Directors. The successes recorded by SEPFO this year is attributed to this group of individuals under the Leadership of the Executive Director, Mr Elvis Mbeng. SEPFO was able to tap the best in terms of knowledge from its personnel and counts on its qualified personnel for continuous success in the future. We also tapped resourceful ideas from Mr Ndip Manasseh ( THE INSPECTOR) who controls schools in mamfe.

Conclusion: In order to become more focused and efficient, SEPFO will from 2010 run programs for self sufficient school. Not to depend on donors, we would like to increase the number of paying kids, reduce feeding, feed only kids below 5years, creat businesses that will generate income. We proposed Agriculture investement projects, and transport project. The truck from Brother Hans, can help generate funds for the school, and equally helps transport building materials from douala to mamfe for easy construction of our new school site. We in the same light set-up a separate website for SEPFO,for this reason I, Elvis Mbeng have moved from Yaounde to Buea, so that I can put more time for the school. Next academic year the seats for common enterance examination and first school leaving certificates, and our school surely will earmark 100% results.

We wish to sincerely thank all those who assisted SEPFO in one way or the other to enable it go through its activities successfully in 2009 academic year.