Nkol
Eton secondary school in Yaoundé is one of the Cameroonian
capital’s leading schools. The city-centre school has
a good reputation. It is also one of the largest schools in
Yaoundé, with 3,500 pupils aged between 16 and 18. In
the playground we meet Clémentine Ngono and Achille Nnomo,
the two main members of the ‘Friends of the Red Cross’
club, which was set up within the school.
Clémentine Ngono, Achille Nnomo and many other members
of the club meet regularly with their schoolmates to raise awareness
about HIV and sexually transmitted diseases. Meetings take place
in a classroom, or sometimes even in the playground.
The children gradually gather together in a circle. After some
hesitation at the thought of discussing very personal issues
in public, the questions follow: questions about prevention,
condoms, contraception. The pupils, who are also volunteers
with the Cameroon Red Cross, answer the questions, referring,
where necessary, to the teachers supervising the meeting.
The new headmistress, Elizabeth Ntonga, is very much in favour
of such awareness-raising events at her school. “The meetings
are not just a good idea, they are essential,” she explains.
Madame Ntonga knows what she’s talking about. She has
only been in post three weeks and she has already learned of
eight unwanted pregnancies among the pupils.
“The girls are frequently approached by boys, but also
by married men looking for an extramarital affair,” explains
Clémentine. “Some girls find it hard to say no
but, sometimes, it’s their lives that are at stake. Teenage
pregnancies are viewed very negatively within families. Parents
sometimes throw their daughters out of the house. They quickly
have to meet new people in order to survive and many of them
then fall into sex work,” she adds.
Some of these girls will also end up being infected with HIV.
Despite the boards carrying prevention messages, placed conspicuously
by the school entrance, it’s sometimes difficult to get
through to the children. “They have to be reminded that
HIV is still a threat,” explains Achille at the end of
the information session. “Boys sometimes tend to put the
issue to the back of their minds, thinking that with all the
treatments that they hear about, that perhaps it’s not
such a serious problem as it was in the past. It’s up
to us to tell them they should remain vigilant,” he adds.
There then follows a discussion between the club members, the
head and some teachers. All stress the pupils’ need for
reference points: “During the information sessions, girls
regularly ask us how to dress properly for the classroom,”
Clémentine explains.
The head adds: “Very often, teachers tell me about pupils
who have trouble staying awake during lessons. When they question
them, they learn that they spent half the night watching porn
films on pay-TV channels that they’ve managed to pirate,
which then also leads to them take risks as far as HIV infection
is concerned,” Madame Ntonga adds.
The activities of the ‘Friends of the Red Cross’
club at the Nkol Eton secondary school could be replicated at
other schools. They complement other programmes run by the Cameroon
Red Cross with support from the International Federation of
Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies as part of the response
to against HIV, like the ‘Filles Libres’ project,
which seeks to raise awareness about HIV among female sex workers
and their clients.
Such work with key vulnerable populations is critical but it
is also clear that prevention should start as soon as possible
with all young people and the activities of the ‘Friends
of the Red Cross’ club is certainly a good example.
|
 |
 |
|
|
Clémentine
plays an active part in her school’s HIV prevention
campaign. (p16745)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Members
of the ‘Friends of the Red Cross’ club run
information sessions for pupils at the Nkol Eton secondary
school in Yaoundé. (p16744)
|
|
|
 |
|
|
Pupils
have many questions for the young Cameroon Red Cross volunteers.
(p16746)
|
|
News
