a request

Friends, Family, and Neighbors,

First, an enormous note of thanks. Thanks to your donations these past couple of weeks, the Young Scholar Program is officially funded. Your donations are already hard at work—if you would like to stay updated on the scholar’s progress please check my blog (I promise to write a real update soon) or email me to get updates. Your quick response was a heartwarming reminder that there are still many, many people out there that care about me and the people currently in my life.

And so I, quite humbly, ask for your assistance one more time. If you didn’t get a chance to donate to the Young Scholar Program, but are still looking for ways to help, you’ve opened the right email.

15% of the population of Cameroon is HIV positive --we’re talking 350,000 people. And these are the people that are courageous enough to find out their status. Over the years, a myriad of NGOs and government-sponsored programs have promoted mass informational seminars teaching school-aged children the importance of abstinence and fidelity in order to prevent the disease. Despite substantial efforts and funds pored into these projects, the Cameroonian people have noticed little change in the behavior of the youth. In fact, the number of HIV positive Cameroonians grows each day.

Mass informational sessions at schools are not a tool for inciting actual behavior change. How can these informational seminars be effective when such a large percentage of Cameroonian youth cannot afford to stay in school? To make ends meet, many of these disenfranchised youth become moto taxi drivers. Moto taxi drivers drive small motor scooters and charge a fare to take people form place to place. There are at least a dozen moto men in each village and after walking, they are the main means of transportation. The moto drivers, generally between the ages of 14 and 30, usually have not finished high school and work long hours for little pay. They have a unique culture that involves outrageous clothing, high alcohol consumption, and of course, a large interest in any woman that passes their way. Once you get to know these men, of course, you learn that there is more to them than crazy hats and catcalls.

My moto driver gets up at 5am to make sure his younger brother gets to school. He had to drop out of school himself so his siblings could continue—his family didn't have enough money to pay for everyone's school fees. After that, he works all morning, taking a break at midday to tend to his family's pigs. He then continues to work until 7 or 8pm. The moto he drives does not belong to him, so he must pay the owner 2,000 CFA a day (approximately $4), and then can keep the rest of whatever he makes. Since each ride is usually 100 CFA (25 cents), what he keeps is barely enough to feed himself. And after all that work, most people think he’s a high school drop out who’s riding around all day chasing after girls.

These poor, uneducated men with their raucous culture inspired us to launch a project aimed to empower them as development agents promoting HIV prevention. Because they are always pursuing women and wildly gossiping while they wait for their next customers, we believe that they would be the perfect candidates to disseminate HIV prevention techniques amongst themselves and other youth in the villages.

11 villages in the West Region will participate in this project. Your donations will allow two moto drivers per village to attend a two-day seminar on HIV transmission and prevention. The training will prepare the participants to become peer educators. During the seminar, we will also offer free HIV testing, something most Cameroonians are too scared to do on their own. After the seminar is complete, the Peace Corps will work closely with the moto drivers from each village to help them schedule and facilitate informational seminars in their own communities and with their own peers. By doing this, we not only hope to diminish the spread of HIV in the West Region, but also empower the moto drivers as development agents.

If you would like to help us out, go to www.peacecorps.gov and click on donate/donors. Look under Cameroon and our project is listed under C. Cook, Beep Your Horn for HIV Prevention. Or just https://www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm?shell=resources.donors.contribute.projDetail&projdesc=694-134. Your contributions are tax deductible. As previously mentioned, we hoped to start this project as soon as possible, but seriously need your help in raising the funds to make it happen! This is crunch time. We need to raise $5,700 in two weeks.

I hope you can help even if it is just a few dollars. Through your donations, this project will come to fruition. Without your support, it won’t happen. If you know someone who might be interested in this project, please pass on the word!

Thank you for your support!

Nura