How maiden South West Cultural Festival pushed budding artist to limelight.

Thaba Joseph

A budding Cameroonian artist named Thaba Joseph has recounted that the maiden South West Cultural Festival that took place in Kumba gave him the first opportunity to entertain a huge crowd of people from all over the country and beyond. For him, this was an opportunity which he made good use of thanks to the encouragement of the South West Delegation of the Ministry of Arts and Culture geaded by Grace Ewang.

Presently this young artist’s activities are closely watched by the Regional Delegate of Arts and Culture for the South West Region Madame Grace Ewang. According to the young artist they are under the present dispensation coming up with a group called Akafame with Prince Ndedi Eyango as President. The upstart who is also Financial Secretary of South West based artists said “artist like me and many other rising ones like me need people to come to our help so that we can work together to bring out the talent that God has placed in many like us.”

The budding artist who is from Menkah Sub Division began his music through inspiration from songs by other people. He therefore began by singing other people’s music and from there got the inspiration to start doing his own stuff. The first steps saw him joining the Brasseries Song Competition far back in 1990.

On how his culture helped him to get started in music he said “culturally, the Menka clan is very rich and I have been participating in almost all cultural festivals. I have greatly sourced from the sounds, the dances and the exotic musical instruments.”

“My first experience was the M1 studio in Buea where I made my first record which received popular acclaim in these parts of the country. My first album Ebumu which means “come together” came out five years ago.  After a couple of years I came up with another album Nchibiwando which means the traditional dance of the Wando man.”

Culture in Cameroon he said needs promotion and the difficulties of the promotion of culture in our country is due to the fact that the framework is not shaped with the promotion of culture in view. Despite the existence of a ministry and delegations, much still has to be added to this skeletal structure.    

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“There is a lot of Sabotage and Propaganda on schools in the North West” -Regional Pedagogic Adviser

 Paffe Nungu Jackaline Kenye, the Regional Pedagogic Adviser for Primary Education at the Regional Delegation of Basic Education for the Northwest Region has complained that there is a lot of sabotage and propaganda by schools with buildup to the kick off of the 2016-2017 Academic year slated for September 6. Though an administrator, she is equally the proprietress and Founder of Model Inclusive Bilingual Complex which has a nursery and Primary practicing school. The complex also runs a Bilingual Teacher Training Institute which she refers to as the model of Inclusive Education in Cameroon.

Speaking to this reporter at the weekend in Bamenda, she said what made Model Inclusive Bilingual Complex Bamenda special was the fact that the school has all types of children from different groups included in the same classrooms. The teachers who manage these different categories of children in the same classroom are equally inclusive she said.  

Commenting on the tendency for clandestine schools to insistently stay on despite all the efforts put in to put an end to this phenomenon, she said parents go out there to schools without knowing if these schools are authorized by the Minister. She explained that in Basic Education for example, they usually come out with a list of authorized schools and that list is published and announced through radio stations. Immediately schools reopen, they again go out for the monitoring of school re-opening in all the Divisions in the Northwest Region.  It is after monitoring, that they come out with the list of schools that have not been authorized to function. At this stage she said “we then form a team involving the Police, the Divisional Officers and move out to close the unauthorized schools.”

Decrying the existence of clandestine schools, she said these establishments are harboring children who are all Cameroonians. “We need to know what they are doing and if they are respecting the programme from the ministry. We need to know if they are secured and if the people running the schools are qualified.  We have been following up this issue of clandestine schools and this year will not be different.”

 Asked if the establishments that she ran were shining examples of legalized schools she said “as part of the team implementing policy in the region, I cannot run an unauthorized school. My Schools are authorized. The Model Inclusive Bilingual Nursery and Primary School was authorized on the 4^th of September 2012 and the school is receiving subventions from the Government. A school which is not authorized cannot receive subvention from the government. Secondly, the teacher training institute which came to supplement this primary school is also authorized. It was authorized on the 8^th of September 2015 by the Minister of Secondary Education, Louis Bapez Bapez at the time. That authorization was for the creation and now we’ve had an authorization given by the present Minister of Secondary Education which was signed on the 14^th of January 2016. This year, the Ministry of Secondary Education has sent the names of authorized schools in the North West Region and the maximum number of children to train. The name of Model Inclusive School came from the Ministry to the Delegation of Secondary Education.”

The cause of this problem is that many people jump into education with a business mind intended to experiment a new line of business she said adding that before getting into this branch of education, she studied in three universities in London, Czech Republic and Fontis University in Holland. “From Fontis University I had a Master Degree in Inclusive Education. I was equally trained by the Cameroonian Government as an Inspector from Higher Teacher Training College ENS Yaounde where I did English Modern Letters and Sciences of Education. We were trained as Administrators. I first of all worked in the Teacher Training College for eight years before being appointed as Divisional Pedagogic Adviser where I worked for three years. Presently I am the Regional Pedagogic Adviser for Primary Education.”

She said the only expert advice she could give Parents was that the best place to get information from is at the Delegations. Parents she said simply needed to go to the Delegation of Secondary Education and ask for the list of authorized schools.  Hear her, “don’t listen to individuals because there is a lot of sabotage going on and propaganda that people make about their schools. This is because there is competition in business and some people have a coward’s attitude in the way they face this competition. Parents should not listen to individuals but should rather go to the various delegations linked to education and ask for the list of authorized schools.”

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“We are launching a health drive to change the hospital going attitude of Cameroonians”

–Dr Tasang Andrew, Atlantic Medical Foundation, Tiko

Dr. Tasang Andrew

You are carrying out a health drive programme in which you have brought in some experts. For this to have any effect, you have to change the general Cameroonian’s hospital going attitude.

Cameroonians need to change their hospital going attitude. We are launching this programme to change their hospital going attitude. It is indeed an uphill task. Cameroonians are known to neglect their health. It is however true that we black Africans in general suffer from this weakness. The notion of preventive medicine does not exist to us. In Europe, life expectancy is longer simply because they do regular medical checkups unlike us. We wait until it is too late when they are carrying us on the stretcher. In most cases, we just come to the hospital to die. I think we should change our pattern of life and the way we perceive things. We give preference to unimportant things like buying bottles of beer at the expense of saving for health needs. When you prescribe drugs for amounts as small as 2000 FCFA, they say it is much and end up not buying prescribed drugs. 

What aspects of health problems is your programme going to touch?

They say charity begins at home so let me start with the fact that me as an Obstetrician Gynecologist is going to participate in this health drive programme focusing on this aspects of health. We have a lot of things to do in Gynecology. The most recurrent is infertility. There are a lot of infertile couples. There are some who have had a child or two and then suddenly stopped giving birth to children. To solve this problem we will have to look at the issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases. You know that now there is a lot of irresponsible sexual activity enhanced by changing habits of the younger generations. Their ways are not like ours since we grew up in a very reserved manner. We will also take care of all diseases concerning women though for now I can only mention a few. It is equally true that many of the young people suffering from sexual weakness only need psychotherapy but in some cases there could be a background of infection. It is not normal that a young man should have sexual weakness and for a woman to have frigidity. 

We equally understand that you are bringing in some dermatologists among other specialists. 

In the villages we have a lot of diseases ranging from rashes to cancer so we have a dermatologist here to take care of things. At times you have some rashes that do not respond to medication so there is a doctor who is a specialist in skin diseases. That’s what we refer to as a dermatologist. Albinos for example need a lot of skin care so he is there for that. 

Cosmetologists consist part of your health drive team. Who is a cosmetologist?

He is one whose business is to render the skin beautiful. They enhance the natural beauty of the skin. Many women have the habit of using skin bleaching agents. This is terrible. Your natural color is the best and changing your skin color exposes you to a lot of diseases amongst which are cancer.

So what will be the role of the medical biologist?

Medicine without the laboratory is nothing because once you have the presumptive diagnoses, that’s when you see somebody and you believe it could be this, you send for the laboratory to confirm. So the specialist we have here is somebody with a PhD in Biological Sciences. We do all the advance tests and get the precise diagnoses because with this treatment is halfway gone.

You equally talked about the visiting Ear Nose and Throat specialist who is part of your health drive.

We have so many diseases concerning the ear mouth and throat. There are people who have difficulties in breathing always feeling congested especially when it is cold. This specialist will also take care of those having hearing problems. This is another rare specialty and in the South West Region, this is the only place where you have an ear, nose and throat specialist. The one we have here comes from L’Hopital General the reference hospital in Douala to come and consult here.

Do you have a message for the needy Tiko and Cameroonian population? 

  

Certainly. The only message I have for them is to know that prevention is better than cure. If people prevent diseases, about 90% of diseases we suffer from will not be there. 

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