Training Single Women in Cameroon

By BGR Staff

BGR has been supporting the Cameroon organization CCREAD (Centre for Community Regeneration and Development) since 2017 on projects that provide livelihood training to widows and single mothers. In 2018, through the grant given by BGR, CCREAD was able to establish a second tailoring and design training unit, which enabled the organization to conduct more training sessions and enroll 68 new women and girls into the program.

As of February 2019, 68 widows and single mothers are undergoing full-time training, spending three days per week on intensive practical sessions in smaller groups split from the main training hall. Thirty-eight of the current 68 women in this cycle of training had been displaced as a result of political crisis and are now being empowered at the training center. Each of those 38 displaced women came to the training with children below the age of 10. CCREAD is helping to feed these children at the training center while their mothers undergo training.

In this current session, more than 52 trainees have achieved a fair degree of mastery over sewing, while 22 of the 68 are already producing garments on their own, with very limited guidance from the trainers at the center. Current trainees see this project as the only opportunity for them to become self-reliant. CCREAD is confident that within the next six months all the 68 trainees will have completed their training, giving opportunities for more women to enroll in the training program. 

The text of this post has been adapted from the six-month report of CCREAD-Cameroon to Buddhist Global Relief.