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Bright Light Projects graduate 25 beneficiaries of the Girls Shall Rise Program, in the South West and North West regions of Cameroon in December 2023. The beneficiaries were drawn from different localities after a rigorous vulnerability assessment in 2021 and 2022 and were admitted into Cameroon Opportunities Industrialization Centre (COIC) Buea, and Royalty World to learn different livelihood skills. Tailoring, Hotel Management, Welding, and metal fabrication, were among the skills the beneficiaries gained during the training program. Girls Shall Rise is a flagship program of Bright Light Projects with a focus on providing livelihood support to vulnerable girls and survivors of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) specifically violence against women and children, Commercial Sex workers, and other vulnerable girls. In Cameroon, the GSR program is dominated by Internally displaced girls from neighboring villages as a result of the ongoing anglophone crisis since 2016.
The Graduation ceremony on 6 December 2023 started with speeches from the representatives of beneficiaries; Ngeh Faithfulness of the Royalty World and Fike Christina Mojoko, a beneficiary from OIC who expressed gratitude to the sponsored organization and training institutions. In the presence of dignitaries including traditional authorities, the director of Women Empowerment Centre Buea, the representatives of OIC and Royalty World, and the Management of the Bright Light Projects expressed gratitude to them and the beneficiaries for trusting and supporting the mission of Bright Light Projects. At the end of the day, Testimonials were handed to the beneficiaries attesting their skills in their respective field of study.
The Graduation that took place on 6 December 2023 in Buea, is one among several graduation ceremonies for the Girls Shall Rise Program which is going on in Cameroon and Sera Leon. 15 beneficiaries, seven from OIC and eight from the Royal World graduated and were sent to the job market. At the Royalty World, the beneficiaries were trained on how to make shoes, bags, and dresses, and most especially how to sew sanitary pads. It is worthy to note that, at least two batches of the beneficiaries of this program have graduated in Bamenda, the North West Region, and Douala, the Litoral Region of Cameroon.
According to the Executive Director, Mr. Franco Bonghan, they selected the beneficiaries through very robust selection criteria. He reiterated they went physically to the villages to conduct vulnerability need assessments. The assessments were scored from 1 to 10, wherein 10 was the most vulnerable and 1 was the least vulnerable. According to him, they only took from 7 to 10 due to limited resources. The Executive Director also told the press that the Bright Light Projects had started negotiating with the management of some hotels in Buea to retain beneficiaries who did internships in their hotels. Some of these hotels have agreed to retain some of the beneficiaries who were trained in Hotel Catering and Tourism. For the beneficiaries who graduated from the Royalty World, the Executive Director hinted to the media that very soon the Bright Light Projects Empowerment Centre will go operational in Bamenda and that the students will be retained in the Centre to train other beneficiaries of the Girls Shall Rise Program. It is worth noting that, the Girls Shall Rise project is still ongoing in Cameroon and Sera Leone, and recently, the Bright Light Projects recruited at least 10 beneficiaries to be trained at the Women Empowerment Centre in Buea.
In addition to the Girls Shall Rise Program, Bright Light Projects is currently running a program for young, given that the organization is gender inclusive and sees the empowerment of both genders as key in bridging the gender gap in society. The program christened Young Men Entrepreneurship, which focuses on skills development, entrepreneurship, and mentorship for Young men ages 18 – 25. The young men's program is currently running in Bamenda and will be extended into other parts of the country after the completion of the vulnerability needs assessment in these areas. The organization is thus training young men in Glass cutting, cell phone repair, motorbike repair, hairdressing, metal work, auto mechanics, and more.
According to the Executive Director, Bright Light Projects’ motivation to keep helping vulnerable persons with livelihood skills is in line with BLP's vision in supporting our beneficiaries to become self-reliant and contribute positively to the development of their communities
One of the Beneficiaries, Ngeh Faithfulness, expressed gratitude to Bright Light Projects for seeing her through the training while stating that it was not an easy journey for her to accomplish Royalty World. She also thanked the management of Royalty World for the encouragement to learn how to sew bags, pads, caps, etc. She equally promised to provide sustainable training to other young girls as Bright Light projects did to them.
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