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Cameroon: Four Rural Women Become Engineers
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Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé)
5 July 2007
Posted to the web 5 July 2007
Effa Tambenkongho
The four Cameroonian women who were selected to study solar electricity in India returned home on July 3.
By 1:15pm family members, relative and friends we all gathered at the Douala International Airport counting down minutes to seconds left for the Ethiopian Airways to touch the ground. They were full of anxiety to receive the four under-educated women who left Cameroon on January 24th 2007 to 'Barefoot' college Tilonia, Indian to receive training in solar energy engineering.
The four included Cylia Ebob 31, Françoise Douhou 30, Nitcheu Philomène 35 and Bouatchoua Jeanne d'Arc 56 who will have to install solar electricity in two villages in Cameroon, Mbwappé in Manoka in Douala 6 and Batcheu in Bafang in the West Province.
The training programme which was sponsored by 'Barefoot' college was a project which was conceived and born during the 2004 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. During the forum, Cameroon was selected as one of the countries to benefit from the project, thanks to a paper presented by the president of the Association for the Support of Women Entrepreneurs, ASAFE, Gisèle Yitamben, who was attending to other duties in Morocco on the return of the women back to Cameroon.
According to the vision of 'Barefoot', knowledge acquisition is open to whosoever and wherever the learner is. 'Barefoot' is merely proving that anybody no matter his level of education can become an engineer in solar energy.
The four women from Cameroon as well as the villages to be electrified were chosen in the presence of 'Barefoot' founder Roy Bunker. As criteria to attend the training, the candidate must not be well educated, nor have knowledge in the sciences and such was the case of the candidates from Cameroon. They should be between 30-45 years, married and with children. They should be deeply implanted in their respective villages, where they will have to assist as engineers to light their villages through solar electricity.
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Some of the engineers Douhou Françoise and Cylia Ebob who spoke to CT at the Douala International Airport said it was a wonderful experience they had in India. They said they were taught through sign language because the Indian solar energy facilitators spoke Hindi, while they spoke French and English. But they successfully learnt the programme in six months and they can proudly install solar electricity if the finances and equipment are available. They said Cameroonians can count on their ability. They also talked of the few pleasure trips they had like going to the market and the kinds of meals they ate in India.
The administrative official, who was at the airport to receive the women, said he has been a party to this project from the initial process of selecting the women and villages. He said they had to visit the villages to select on their need of electricity.
Apart from four Cameroonians there were also two Gambians, two Sierra Leonean and five Malians. So far about 500 villages in India, 19 in Ethiopia and five in Afghanistan have been solar electrified.
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