NCIG announces the commencement of an Adult Functional Literacy Program for women farmer groups in Fako division in the South West Province of Cameroon. Support for this program came from the Gender and Development Fund of the Canada support office in Cameroon. This is an 18 months program (November 2003-April 2005) for which, some 100 women are already receiving formal education on alphabetization and numeracy including such functional aspects as bookkeeping, agriculture, home making skills, legislation, basic hygiene among others.

The justification for the functional /adult literacy program emanates from the difficulties encountered by NCIG in its micro credit activities with village women groups in the Buea and Muyuka sub divisions. Such difficulties included inability to recognise figures and their names and to sign their signatures for the loan, etc.

These problems have far reaching effects, which include the ability of women to access and track loans, their ability to stand up in public and assume leadership be it in women only or among the larger community etc. For instance, some women who had expressed need for loans to improve on their productivity were stopped by their husbands who thought that women do not have the right to take their own decisions nor are able to handle micro credits for their personal benefits. Thus, alongside acquiring literacy skills, one of the objectives for this project is to see women come out of their second-class position and be able to take personal decisions.

The implementation of the project is based on the highly acclaimed REFLECT (RE generated Frierian Literacy Through Empowering Community Techniques) approach.

Activities Achieved So Far.

1) Mobilisation and sensitisation of local communities (November 2003)
- 6 villages were mobilized and sensitized and 100 women retained for the programme.
- Four training Centers have been created in different villages for the classes.

2) Training of Trainers (TOT)
- Teachers in local community schools were identified and trained, along with NCIG field staff on the REFLECT approach to adult literacy.

3.) THE REFLECT Circles.

The NCIG staff carried out familiarisation meetings with participants at the different Centers during which their respective facilitators were introduced to them. During such meetings the days, time, venue and frequency of classes were decided together with the participants.

Participants were supplied working materials and books during their "First Meeting" / classes with their respective community facilitators.

Reports from the field show that participants are enthusiastic to learn more and are looking forward to the official launching of the programme, which is planned for March 2004.

Already, more demand for this programme is being expressed in the target and other communities.