7:37 |
Author: La Vuelta al Mundo de Dan y David
We haven´t go long left here in Fundong and we're working really hard to get everything finished.
Tomorrow we have our first training workshop on soap-making!
There are literally hundreds of widows in this small town, most of them young women with a several kids to school, clothe and feed and no income to be able to do it. They farm small plots and produce corn for their fufu but have no other way of generating money. So we've organised them in to groups and with some of the money raised from the fundraising concert in Spain we're setting them us as soap-makers.
Everyone's mad about soap here. Not long ago the population here started learning about personal hygiene and now, if they have any spare francs they buy soap. The thing is, it's mostly available in big blocks costing 350frs, making it an expensive product. David and I have spent hours researching and trying out soap recipes. It is surprising easy to make soap, just oil and caustic soda. We've decided that when we're back home we're going to become greenies and recycle all our used oil to make soap.
We've come up with a green aloe vera soap (aloe vera and medicated soap is the in thing here too) which is actually quite cool, even if I do say so myself.
A carpenter is making the moulds and cutters and we've set up everything else so that the first group will begin making soap next week. With the proceeds of their first batch they buy ingredients for their next soap and for the next group. Eventually there will be 15 groups with 130 women. If it all works out we'll be really pleased! The women are lovely and very grateful for any help. There are so many of them, we recognise a few faces but when walking around town they stop and greet us time and time again and we can never remember who is who.
The rest of the fundraising money is going to complete a goat project that was set up a year ago. The high death rate here means many orphans are being brought up by relatives who do not have enough money to send them to school. A project was set up to give these orphans two goats for breeding. With the goats they breed they are to return two to the organisation to pass on to another child, and they can sell kids to pay for their education. The project did not have enough funding to be set up completely and many children only received one goat. The idea is working,
and some families are ready to return two goats to Berudep, but it's going much slower than it should. So with the money left over we're buying the female goats that are missing, so each child has two, and a few male goats to speed up the process!
There are literally hundreds of widows in this small town, most of them young women with a several kids to school, clothe and feed and no income to be able to do it. They farm small plots and produce corn for their fufu but have no other way of generating money. So we've organised them in to groups and with some of the money raised from the fundraising concert in Spain we're setting them us as soap-makers.
Everyone's mad about soap here. Not long ago the population here started learning about personal hygiene and now, if they have any spare francs they buy soap. The thing is, it's mostly available in big blocks costing 350frs, making it an expensive product. David and I have spent hours researching and trying out soap recipes. It is surprising easy to make soap, just oil and caustic soda. We've decided that when we're back home we're going to become greenies and recycle all our used oil to make soap.
We've come up with a green aloe vera soap (aloe vera and medicated soap is the in thing here too) which is actually quite cool, even if I do say so myself.
A carpenter is making the moulds and cutters and we've set up everything else so that the first group will begin making soap next week. With the proceeds of their first batch they buy ingredients for their next soap and for the next group. Eventually there will be 15 groups with 130 women. If it all works out we'll be really pleased! The women are lovely and very grateful for any help. There are so many of them, we recognise a few faces but when walking around town they stop and greet us time and time again and we can never remember who is who.
The rest of the fundraising money is going to complete a goat project that was set up a year ago. The high death rate here means many orphans are being brought up by relatives who do not have enough money to send them to school. A project was set up to give these orphans two goats for breeding. With the goats they breed they are to return two to the organisation to pass on to another child, and they can sell kids to pay for their education. The project did not have enough funding to be set up completely and many children only received one goat. The idea is working,
and some families are ready to return two goats to Berudep, but it's going much slower than it should. So with the money left over we're buying the female goats that are missing, so each child has two, and a few male goats to speed up the process!
1 comentarios:
Hello,
I will be volunteering at BAMENDA next year. May I contact you to ask some questions about your experiences?
My email is benyigergely gmail com
Thank you!
Greg