Back to School Fundraiser for our Orphans and Vulnerable Children

I thank God so much for your commitment to serving the poor and helping people find freedom in Christ and live the lives God created them to live. As some of you know, for three years now, a war has been going on in the western English speaking part of Cameroon where we have been serving for many years. Over the past couple of years, thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced internally and into Nigeria. Sylvanus, a young man who graduated from our program, was killed in the war. Many of our children haven’t been able to go to school in the English speaking part of the country for almost three years now.

Because of the war, we were forced to relocate our center and children to Yaounde, the capital city of Cameroon. In order to help our children be able to return to school after missing it for three years, we have moved many who were in foster homes to a temporary center in Yaounde.

As a result of the war, the cost of living in Yaounde (and other cities) have increased tremendously.  For example, for many students, tuition and fees in Yaounde would be 4-5 times higher than what we were paying before. This doesn’t include the costs of food, running a vehicle, additional staff, and rent–much of which we didn’t have to spend in Batibo where we owned a permanent building built by partners for the children to live in.

For many years, our child sponsorship program has helped our children to get medical care, practical care, and education they need. However, the $35/month donation per child has never been enough to fully cover these costs. Often times we try to partner a child with two sponsors at a time so that they are fully covered. As tuition and costs have increased over time and especially now that we are relocated in Yaounde, the cost of education and care has drastically changed. This is why we have created our Back To School Fundraiser in order to cover the costs of tuition, books, and uniforms specifically for these 80 children being relocated to Yaounde. In addition to monthly sponsorship, money raised in the coming weeks will allow our children to attend school again and have a stable and safe home.

Our hopes and prayers are that each of these children being relocated to Yaounde would once again be able to attend school and would receive the love and care that they need during this time of unrest in Cameroon. Long term, we also hope to once again provide long-term community-based care in homes for children who need them like we previously did in western Cameroon. Please pray with us for these children and for Cameroon.

Kenneth Acha, MD
Director, Kenneth Acha Foundation