"I am not sure how to feel... I created this blog only days after being accepted into the Kick it Forward program in October 2016. It seems like a lifetime ago. In the end, I have never been so proud of all of the students and teachers who were involved in making this project a reality. Not only did we reach our goal - we exceeded it! My life, post Cameroon, were strange. I feel as if the world around me has changed since I returned home, but then I realized it was me who changed. It was almost like after someone dies and the world keeps on just as it always had, but you felt as if everything should slow down, but it won't. I think it was a part of me, the person I was before Cameroon, who died. I feel as though I am finishing a book,
one that I can come back and read whenever I please, but there is nothing like the first time. Everyday I try to remind myself of the overflow of emotion I felt while I was in Cameroon. I ache to smell the air, to feel the red dirt beneath my feet and the feeling of complete freedom. I miss that feeling every single day." - Bailey Morrison
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We've almost completed our Post Cameroon segments but were not ready to shut that chapter of our lives yet... right? Exactly. On this segment we will look over the Universite des Montagnes in Bangangté. In January, nine groups of students from the University sent their detailed business plans they hoped to implement if they were selected. A group of entrepreneurs in the Charleston area studied the nine business plans and decided which three would continue to the second phase. We (the group traveling to Cameroon) received the top three business plans, read, and talked amongst each other prior to arriving at the University. Once we arrived at the competition, we had the chance to listen to each of the three groups presentations and ask questions. Each group was so well prepared and so educated on their topics - they truly blew us away! After much deliberation among our group, we decided our winner would be Group 3: Palm Oil! It was so exciting to see how excited they were to win the completion! We hope Palm Grove grows and prospers for the future!!
So far on our post-Cameroon segments we have analyzed and our soccer game! However, on this segment we would like to focus on the overall goal of the entire reason we traveled to Cameroon in the first place: to distribute school supplies to the children! Passing out the supplies was so exciting! To see the children, in each school, so excited about what we had just given them was the best experience of the whole trip! "Being able to take pictures of the smiles of the children was one of the most humbling things I did while I was there... I know it is impossible to truly capture all the feelings in these pictures, but I truly hope they inspire something in anyone who sees them" - Bailey Morrison On this second of segment of Post Cameroon we will be focusing on one of the groups favorite experiences while in Cameroon!! Playing soccer with the kids from the plantation was so much fun! Everyone from our group played, it was rough! The kids definitely did not go easy on us! "I’ve never played soccer before, and these kids clearly had and they did not go easy on us! I took my defensive position a little too seriously and one of the kids ran past me so quickly I fell and rolled two or three times before getting up! It was so much fun to play on a team with the teachers and the principal, and thank goodness we did!" - Anna Burgess After the game we passed out soccer supplies and clothes to all the children who played against our team! It was truly a wonderful experience to have with some truly incredible people!
On our first "After Cameroon" segment we will be covering our tour of the nine schools we visited! As you may already know, our initial goal was to visit five schools. However, we had so many leftover bags and free time we decided to add a few extra schools! In the slideshow below, you will find photos of the children who attended the plantation school! After our distribution of school supplies from the plantation school, we went to eight more schools in neighboring villages, the queen's school, and a school for deaf and mute students. In the slideshow below you will find a collection of all of the pictures of our travels through the schools in Cameroon! I hope you have enjoyed the first segment of many to come!
Today we had our first class back in the US after our trip to Cameroon... It was so exciting to see everyone since we spent everyday together for ten days after the two weeks of not seeing each other! We talked a lot about our lives since being back and decided we should reflect on our experience and share it with you!
Tonight I was browsing the CERSOM website (the deaf/mute school in Cameroon we visited) and came across a particular piece of news! Visit of American students A group of students from the American "College of Charleston" visited CERSOM on March 10, 2017. The director showed them the school and the boarding school. The American students donated a lot of school material to the pupils and teachers. Our pupils were very happy about the bags filled with exercise books, pencils and letters from American pupils. We are so thrilled the children were happy about our donation!
As we have returned back to our routines and somewhat normalcy... finding this was a great reminder of our trip to Cameroon! You can check out their website here Monday morning, March 6th is the day the when all the magic began! We arrived at the school around 9am to observe the students and teachers during their lessons. After we sat in each class, taking mental notes about all of the students and the teaching styles, we began unloading boxes and handing out the bags of supplies! This same tactic followed suit with all of the other schools we visited while in Cameroon. We wanted to compare the interactions the students and the teachers and see if there was a change in the different types of schools we visited! As stated before, we initially planned to visit five schools. However, since we had extra bags, we decided to visit nine schools! Here is a break down of our daily distribution schedule! March 6th Plantation School Total Bags delivered: 315 March 7th Catholic school, public school, and bilingual school Total Bags delivered: 1,200 March 8th local village school, Queen's village school, Soule's village school Total Bags delivered: 900 March 9th CERSOM - deaf/mute school Total Bags delivered: 250 In addition, we had even more left over bags so we distributed them all around the Petpenoun region in Cameroon! It was beyond worth it to see all these beautiful smiles just for us!
Initially, the group planned to collect 3,000 bags filled with supplies to the local villages around Petpenoun de Cameroon. We made 3,021 bags fully packed with the designated materials and had enough donated materials to create five "teacher" boxes for the principles at the schools! Below you will find a break down of the materials and time put in by the team and all of our incredible donors to make Kick it Forward 3 a true success! I cannot even truly begin to express how our lives are changed because of this experience. I do hope that this trip will continue at the College and that it will continue to change the lives of not only the people in Cameroon - but also the team members.
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