Ecole Maternelle - Elementaire Badoumven

As part of ECF’s annual cultural exchange and pen-pal project, we have an excellent opportunity to assist other children while enlightening our own.

This year ECF is connecting with another western Cameroonian school in need. The small village of Badoumven, near the city of Bafang, has one school - it has leaking roofs, cracked walls, broken doors and dirt floors. It does not have play structures or enough teachers for its students, and of those they do have, some must walk eight kilometers to reach the school.

ECF is collecting funds for this school’s prioritized list of immediate needs:

• 1) Repair leaking roofs – students & teachers must take refuge from classrooms when it rains.
• 2) Salaries for two additional teachers. There are 8 classes but only 6 teachers, including the director.
• 3) Repairing classroom walls – they are cracking in several places that indicate a risk of collapse.
• 4) Covering floors - Four classrooms have dirt floors which lead to a difficult environment, making it difficult to breathe or remain clean.
• 5) Play equipment and development of a recreation area.
• 6) Repair the classroom doors.
• 7) A transportation option, such as a motorbike, for teachers who walk eight kilometers each day to reach school.

This is a wonderful learning project for ECF children as an in-depth study and discovery of another culture of children, and provides much needed assistance to Ecole Maternelle-Elementaire Badoumven.

Last year Ecole Claire Fontaine students dove into the study of Ecole Elementaire de Batossouo in the western region of Cameroon - the local culture, food, geography and way of life. The children exchanged beautiful letters and the ECF community generously donated books and funds for school supplies and to make necessary repairs, including of the restroom. ECF's Solange donated the salary for a teacher. She visited the school, and when she hand-delivered the gifts, Batossouo students greeted her by singing, “À la Claire Fontaine.”

The projects are overseen by Solange & her family, ECF Science teacher Emilie, and Mme. Dumas.