Back to School with ACOHOF: 2021 - 2022 Academic Year

“Starting the school year without essential supplies can lower a child’s self-esteem before they even begin learning”

Every year, we at the Afoni Children of Hope Foundation strive to provide disadvantaged school children in the communities we serve with the school supplies they need to start the school year with self-esteem.

Most of the families of disadvantaged children that we serve often struggle to purchase school supplies for their children who indispensably need adequate grade-appropriate school supplies to be successful in school every academic year. As for very poor internally displaced families, providing school supplies is totally absent or comes after other basic necessities, such as food, shelter, medication, and clothing. The price that children of these families pay for their families’ poor financial situation often challenges their education in several ways such as, destabilizing their self-esteem and confidence and also creating emotional trauma and personal issues that negatively affect their performance in school and beyond.

It is against the backdrop that this year we took a special interest in school children internally displaced by the armed conflict in the North West and South West Regions of Cameroon and enrolled into the ACOHOF Family Farm School, Bankim in the Adamawa Region of Cameroon. With the generous support of the MTN Foundation, Pens for Kids, and Mr. Justin Afoni Njobam, 50 school children of the ACOHOF Family Farm School were able to start the 2021/2022 academic year with the tools they need to succeed such as exercise books, pens, school bags, and face masks. This special “Back to School with ACOHOF” event took place on Monday 13th September 2021 at the new ACOHOF Family Farm School premises during the first Parents Teachers Association (PTA) meeting for the 2021/2022 academic year. The provision of these school materials to these internally displaced and disadvantaged school children at this critical time creates great happiness in their mind and also at each household level; as well as create a more positive school climate and also improve their academic achievement.

We want to extend a huge thank you to the MTN Foundation Cameroon for providing the books and school bags; to Pens for Kids for providing pens, and to Justin Afoni Njobam for providing special face masks. By ensuring that internally displaced children can continue their education, we are together making an investment in their future, and the future of Cameroon.