A Silicone Engineering employee has recently returned from her travels to Cameroon.
Clare Holden, Finance Controller at Silicone Engineering, helped locals brush up on their IT and financial skills in the village of Babungo. Babungo is a small village in the north west of Cameroon, which holds beautiful landscapes, calming rivers and green hills. Clare was invited to the village by Tweke John Tumenta, the Director of Babungo Integrated Mental Health Care (BIMEHC). BIMEHC doesn’t have much financial backing, which means that sadly the centre has no choice but to turn patients away at times.
With lack of education, many people in the village are still illiterate so Clare felt it was very important for her to help the centre’s director John with costings, billings and expenditure.
Since Cameroon isn’t currently up to date with IT, everything is still paper based. In addition to the centre’s new outlook, Clare has initiated a simple system to collect money for billing which has now been put in place. John, the centre’s director, was taught skills such as; how to organise his end of year accounts, pre payment methods and how to incorporate cash flow at the centre.
As well as applying her knowledge to the centre, Clare initially wanted to visit Babungo to show her friend Margaret moral support, for all the work she has carried out in the last two years to help the people of Cameroon.
To thank all the volunteers for their help, traditional outfits were made by the locals of Babunga, something that Clare was over whelmed by.
She said; “It was really nice to be included in the Cameroon culture, especially now that I am classed as a sister to the locals.
The overall experience of meeting everyone and learning and understanding the village culture has been very special and is something I will cherish forever.”
The traditional outfits were also worn at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games earlier this year, to represent Cameroon.