AFRICA: CAD AID CAMEROUN EXTRAORDINARY GENERAL MEETING
On Sunday, May 10, 2020 at 10:30am Cameroon time, CAD-Aid/Cameroon's very first Extraordinary General Meeting was held via video conference. The majority of executive members were present. The agenda included introductions of members, a brief debriefing on the organization of CAD-Aid's activities, proposed action plans and responses to the concerns of various members.
Managed by Carine MambouThis was followed by a brief introduction of the members. After the individual introductions, the founding president gave a PowerPoint presentation of CAD-Aid on its origin, meaning, logo, slogan, target, aim, mission and objectives, and concluded with a draft annual strategic work plan with a focus on the care of victims reported in Cameroon. The founder then opened the floor to a series of questions and answers, so that each member could say what he or she thinks or intends to do in his or her department to ensure the smooth running of the organization.
To this end, the members highlighted a number of problems that are considerably slowing down the organization's progress towards its pre-established objectives:
- The lack of seriousness, the lack of concrete actions and the real non-involvement of certain members (vice-president Paul Fouda);
- The Cameroonian government's hostility to the creation of NGOs in the country (Deputy SG Éric Longmaguem);
- The difficulty encountered in opening the organization's bank account due to the lack of certain appropriate documents, such as the concrete legalization from CAD-Aid and the effective presence of the designated officials for the recommended signature at the requested bank, notably the physical absence of the founding president in Cameroon.
In view of all this, several proposed action plans have been listed to remedy these shortcomings. These are as follows
- The modification of the status validated by all members to facilitate the opening of the bank account at BICEC;
- The development of a better communications action plan and the multiplication of communications gadgets to make ourselves better known, especially in schools (proposed by Guy-Romain Sandié).
- The organization of conferences to create moments of sharing with families and individuals to raise awareness of these scourges that are increasingly undermining our society and destroying the lives and futures of children and women (proposal made by Public Relations Officer Wilfried Nsobe).
- The founding president, through examples of care, support and reintegration of certain cases of victims of rape and domestic violence (the cases of little Fortune, Gertrude, Jeanne-Irène, Sandrine, Audrey and many others) made it clear how important and even necessary it was for CAD-Aid to always support victims in order to give them a better chance of reintegrating into society without fear.
- To compensate for the lack of concrete action, Éric Longmaguem proposed aid actions such as the manufacture and distribution of CAD-Aid personalized masks to enhance the well-being of vulnerable people (victims of rape and other forms of violence) in this delicate period when COVID-19 is paralyzing populations around the world in general and in Cameroon in particular;
- Jaures Djomou, who is in charge of communications, believes that distributing flyers and editing a few videos of no more than one minute, which we will share on all our different media platforms, will help the organization to raise public awareness and easily reach our target audience, as well as making us better known;
- Jaurès and Wilfried also had the brilliant idea of predefining the sanitary framework in Cameroon.
The decisions taken with direct effect to put into practice certain proposals of our meeting are :
- The adoption of an amount of 10 thousand FCFA/member for the making of masks. While noting that this amount will be considered as part of each member's annual fee
- Drawing up a list of requirements for each department manager, to be submitted to the general secretariat for the smooth running of the organization.
- The creation and use of each member's CAD-Aid e-mail address for all international communications
- Erna will have to present a first aid plan to be used in the event of our victims' health situation.
- The founding president will have to restructure the respective tasks and attributions for a call to order and to work.
- Patrick Tchatchoua, the auditor, reminded all members of their unpaid annual subscriptions (50,000 FCFA/year), the printing of their business cards for 5,000 FCFA and the printing of their polo shirts for 5,000 FCFA.
All in all, we can say that the Extraordinary General Meeting was very fruitful and enabled everyone to realize the seriousness and commitment required to achieve CAD-Aid's objectives. From now on, we'll be holding similar meetings and internal training sessions for members, to better inform them about the purpose, missions, objectives, strategic action plan and process of caring for victims. The outcome of this session enabled us to understand the substance of the work to be done in the days ahead to help achieve the organization's objectives for the current year.
