Bamenda Coordinating Centre for Studies in Disability and Rehabilitation (BCCSDR)
The Bamenda Coordinating Centre for Studies in Disability and Rehabilitation (BCCSDR) is a non-governmental and non-profit organization with headquarters in Bamenda Cameroon. Since 2009, the BCCSDR has carried out more than 40 research and program development projects and evaluation of disability inclusion in humanitarian programs in the Northwest and Southwest regions of Cameroon, under the SEEPD and EDID Programs of the Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services sponsored by AUSIAD through cbm Australia and the Lilianne Foundation.
The BCCSDR in collaboration with the International Centre for Disability and Rehabilitation of the University of Toronto, carried out two programs, which include; “Pilot study to identify prevalence, and impact of impairments on the Quality of Life of PWDs in the Northwest region of Cameroon”. (2010) and “Study on appropriate approaches (“Best Practices”) for Disability and rehabilitation in the Northwest Region” 2010 to 2012.
The BCCSDR has wide experience in providing psychological support to vulnerable children and adults including persons with disabilities. In 2014, it provided psychological support to 2400 children under PLAN Cameroon sponsorship and since 2019, we have been providing psychological support on an annual basis to more than 500 internally displaced persons including persons with disabilities under the sponsorship of Mission 21 Cameroon Office.
The BCCSDR has trained 10 organizations in child safeguarding and assisted them to elaborate their child safeguarding policies.
To ensure persons with disabilities have access to building structures, the BCCSDR has done accessibility audits in hospitals, schools and other public structures to and made recommendations to these structures to make them accessible to persons with disabilities and the elderly.
OUR MISSION
The mission of the Centre is to render and improve services and support to vulnerable individuals especially those with all types of disabilities, and their families, and the prevention of disability and the promotion of health, including mental health through research, program development, education and psychological support in Cameroon.
Paramount of its work is to ensure the respect of human rights especially that of vulnerable children, children and adults with disabilities and the internally displaced persons in the North-west and South-west regions of Cameroon.
OUR VISION
A society where everyone has equal opportunity and capability to function optimally.
OUR OBJECTIVES
The objectives of the Centre include the following:
- To coordinate and disseminate disability and rehabilitation research and information in the region and the country in conjunction with relevant organizations.
- To provide professional development and education in the domain of disability & rehabilitation.
- To provide education and support to vulnerable persons and persons with disabilities and their families.
- Provide psychological support to internally displaced persons and host community members.
- To network with other organizations with similar aims and objectives, locally, nationally and internationally.
To work with other development organizations, civil society and community members to create an inclusive society
OUR PROGRAMS AND SERVICES
Psychological support program internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Northwest Region of
Cameroon (on-going) 2019 to Present.
SUMMARY
We carry out field visits to identify and assess the needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and follow up those already handled, in case of any relapses, since our specialization is on psychological treatment of the various forms of mental disorder. Some of the commonly recorded cases include; anxiety, distress, stress, fear and phobia, and post-traumatic stress
disorder.
We use appropriate psychological measurement to diagnose and determine the type and severity of mental or psychological disorders we come across. We used the Rosenberg self-esteem scale and the OVC wellbeing tool to ascertain the level of anxiety, fear, worry, and stress. For PTSD,
we administered the UCCA PTSD index for DSM IV for diagnosis; used the scoring worksheet for UCLA PTSD index for DSM-IV to ascertain the severity of PTS, and the individual healing report form to present the results of our psychological intervention sessions. Our interventions involved the ART, SIT, Counselling, CBT and cognitive therapy. The trauma healing process involved the building of a relationship of trust with the client and programming subsequent
intervention sessions. We collect testimonies from some of our clients who have recovered.
The following activities are also implemented:
Identification of child led structures (CLS)
These are households of internally displaced children whose parents are death or have relocated
to other regions and abandoned the children to themselves. We identify these structures and refer
them to relevant government departments and other organizations for appropriate care.
IDP SUPPORT GROUPS
The support groups are for internally displaced persons who live in the same communities. They
come together once a week to share experiences, good practices and learn from each other. There
are groups for adults and another for children.
Exit Interview for patients and clients project for two Cameroon Baptist
Convention Hospital (Mbingo Baptist Hospital & Banso Baptist Hospital)
SUMMARY
The Cameroon Baptist Convention Health Services (CBC-HS) has been making
efforts to improve on the quality of services rendered to its clients in both Mbingo Baptist
Hospital and Banso Baptist Hospital. They have been doing so by recruiting new staff, providing in service training to old staff and constructing new buildings to accommodate more patients. It is for these reasons that these exit interviews are conducted to assess the impact of all these investment on the quality of health services delivered. The departments concerned are, Eye care,
Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) and Physiotherapy Departments of both hospitals including the Mental Health Department of BBH.
METHODOLOGY
A three-page questionnaire was developed and administered to patients and clients who had been consulted and/or discharged from the hospitals. The first page had information about the reason for the interview, while the second page captures the demographic information of the respondent including type of disability and the status of the respondent whether it is a new case or a reviewed case. The third page had the questions and it was divided into 5 sections; Amenities, environment, medical expertise, efficiency and systems and people’s skills. There were questions under each section and respondents were asked to rate them on a scale of 1-5, 1 being awful and
5 being excellent. Space was provided for comments. The answers were written on the
questionnaires and thereafter entered into an excel data base that was created for the purpose of the study.
OUR LEADERS
Julius Kwanga Wango
Executive Director
Wango obtained a Master Degree in Social Work in 1998 from the University of Ibadan-Nigeria. For the past 24 years I have been involved in research, evaluation and Program development activities and training. Since 2008 I have participated in more than 20 research and program development studies to foster inclusion of persons with disabilities in all mainstream activities in the North-West and South-West regions of Cameroon. In a team we have developed child safeguarding policies in fifteen organizations and seven councils in the North-West region of Cameroon. I
have also carried out two inclusion assessments of
humanitarian actions in the North-West and South-West
regions of Cameroon to cause humanitarian organizations to include persons with disabilities in their projects. All the activities in the area of Disability and
Inclusive Development are implemented respecting the principle of human rights.
As the Executive Director of the Bamenda Coordinating Centre for Disability and Rehabilitation I also do resilience building activities which entail the provision of psychological support to
vulnerable children, children and adolescence with disabilities. The activities under this project include; counselling, providing training in psychological support (trauma healing exercise, coaching visits), and needs assessment to ascertain the needs of these vulnerable children in order to make them succeed in life. The essence of the needs assessment is to identify children in need of psychosocial support and to secure the necessary support mechanisms within families
Over the years I have acquired lots of experience in research methodologies including; desk review, development of Research Protocols and Proposals, collecting and analysing data and report writing, training of research assistants, development of data collection tools, organizing focus group discussions and sorting administrative clearance from local administrators before field activities.
Email:juwango68@gmail.com
Jima Joy Neh
Head Psychological Unit
Jima JOY Neh a 39-years-old Cameroonian, highly talented and dynamic humanitarian professional specialized in offering psychosocial support and counselling services. She reaches out to person in need wherever they are found, especially internally displaced persons who have been affected by conflicts. She has worked with over 500 clients ranging from men, women, youths and children walking them through their psychosocial challenges. She has as core values integrity, confidentiality, impartiality and humanity. She is flexible, believes in team work and has good communication, mediation and advocacy skills
Her educational background in Nursing, Guidance counselling, Social work and project management/evaluation, obtained from different institutions including many years of work experience in humanitarian social work as a psychosocial services provider has given her the adequate trainings and skills required to coordinate, manage, and follow up of clients with psychological issues through the development and implementation of treatment plans to help clients live their healthiest life, conducting proper psychological screening and assessment, demonstrating a thorough knowledge of psychological counselling theories to ensure wellness, regain of self-esteem and hope to clients.
Email: jimajoy84@gmail.com
PAST ACTIVITIES OF OUR ORGANIZATION
1.Outcome Evaluation of Treatment for Musculoskeletal Deformities in Children in the West and Adamawa Regions of Cameroon during the period July 2021 to June 2023”: 2024
Evaluation Goal, Objective, Scope:
Evaluation Goal:
The goal of this evaluation was to assess the wellbeing of children who benefited from orthopedic corrective surgeries at the CBC Health Services Trauma Centre, Mutengene.
Evaluation scope:
The evaluation focused on the outcome of the project “Integrated Approach to managing disability from Musculoskeletal Deformities in children in the West and Adamawa regions of Cameroon”, implemented from July 2021 to June 2023.
Evaluation Objectives:
The objectives of this study include:
- To assess the treatment outcomes of neglected clubfoot and other musculoskeletal deformities carried out from July 2021 to June 2023.
- To document evidence of significant changes in the lives of children treated for neglected clubfoot and other musculoskeletal deformities, their families, and community.
- To determine the extent to which families of children treated for neglected clubfoot and other musculoskeletal deformities are satisfied with the outcome.
- To assess the extent to which livelihood support provided by the project contributed in ensuring retention in care and improvement in the wellbeing of families.
- To develop recommendations to guide future orientations for ongoing project.
2. Comprehensive Accessibility Audit for five Government Heath structures Regional Hospital Annex Nkambe, Fundong District Hospital, Wum District Hospital, Nkwen District Hospital, Santa District Hospital and Saint Joseph Children and Adult Home (SAJOCAH) 2023
Framework for the accessibility audit:
The Cameroon government has passed laws to include people with disabilities in all mainstream activities notably the 2010 law with its text of application of 2018 for the protection of persons with disabilities. However, this Law did not include specific Article on accessibility making persons with disabilities have limited access to public buildings and other public places and the transport section.
Notably however, according to the law No. 96-06 of 18 January 1996 that amended the Constitution of 2 June 1972, the government of Cameroon affirms its respect for the fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Charter of the United Nations and The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and all duly ratified international conventions.
Though Cameroon signed the United Nations Convention of the Rights of Persons with disabilities (UNCRPD) on 1st October 2008, it is still to ratify the convention. The UNCRPD re-affirms various rights for persons with disabilities of which Accessibility (Article 9) and Health (Article 24) are one of these rights. Further, the Convection spells out various principles of inclusion in Article 3.
By signing the convention, the Government of Cameroon therefore identifies with all these rights and principles of inclusion for persons with disabilities. This comprehensive accessibility audit was also referenced on the principles of universal design. CBM’s Inclusion Made Easy in Eye Health Programs guide as well as the guide to Promoting Access to the Built Environment was also key documents used to define standards during this comprehensive accessibility audit.
Goal of the Accessibility Audit
The Accessibility Audit was intended to assess physical, information, communication, and attitudinal level of accessibility in all the structures in order to identify necessary adjustments in the service provided to persons with disability in accordance with international standards. It helped to recognized current barriers and made recommendations for future disability action plan.
Specific Objective of the Accessibility Audit:
- To assess whether persons with disabilities are able to reach the health facility either walking or on public transport.
- To assess whether persons with disabilities are able to enter the hospital buildings and move around with ease.
- To evaluate how easily hospital staff and persons with all types of disabilities communicate amongst themselves.
- Assess the policy and practice put in place by Fundong District Hospital administration for persons with disabilities to reasonably access services at the facility.
Assess the relevance of the strategy and approaches that the PMEL team has been using, as well as to make recommendations for future programming. 2023
Objective of the Internal Review
-To generate a resource plan defining key resources (human and equipment) needed for the acceleration of the PMEL strategy.
-To assess the relevance, effectiveness, efficiency, continuity (sustainability) and impact of the PMEL Strategy.
-To assess the effectiveness of the current approaches used in rolling out the PMEL strategy based on the context.
-To generate lessons learnt & recommendations to inform future revision of the PMEL strategy.
Safety Audit in communities in Bamenda and Santa: UNFPA-ROK PROJECT 2022
Objective of the Internal Review
Introduction:
The essence of this Safety audit is to help evaluate how safe are the environments where people live especially the internally displaced persons and identify tangible solutions that would make it safer for everyone. During this safety audit, the auditors walk through the selected communities, noticing what feels safe and what does not. The safety audit checklist used encouraged them to consider things like:
- What is the lighting like?
- Can I see what’s up ahead?
- Are there places someone could be hiding?
- Could I get help if l needed it?
The findings from this walkabout will form the basis for an action plan to make the communities safer.
The safety audit was conducted in some communities in 5 subdivisions of Mezam division namely, Bamenda 1,2 and 3, Santa and Tubah
Conclusion:
This safety audit identified areas where people in the communities are vulnerable and places where they are at risk. The recommendations proposed will go a long way to make the environment safer and build the resilience of community members to face the future with optimism. For this to happen it is important that service providers build and maintain meaningful relationships with beneficiaries and local stakeholders in the entire project management cycle. All stakeholders should endeavour to maintain a constant communication link amongst them in order to share good practices and identify mistakes for quick action to remedy the situation. These discussions should always include representatives from those who are the most vulnerable to safety concerns, in order to ensure that audit recommendations respond to their needs.
Service providers should build the capacity of its staff to acquire capacity to undertake a safety audit; focus should be placed on choosing audit areas that already have resources allocated to them for improvement and should be customized to suit the local environment, culture and policies.
Enhancing the capacity of persons with disabilities and other vulnerable persons to; participate in all community and humanitarian activities” in the North-West Region of Cameroon. Funded by the Swiss Embassy Cameroon; July to December 2020
The objectives of the project are:
-Identify organizations distributing humanitarian assistance in the specify communities and link our target population to them.
-Identify and train four community social workers on psychological intervention methods and how to include disability issues in mainstream activities.
-Do a baseline survey to identify internally displaced persons with disabilities and establish their psychological needs.
-Provide counselling services to the identified persons with disabilities and trauma healing sessions based on their psychological needs.
“Impact of existing Community Based Rehabilitation and Microfinance services of the SEEPD Program on the Socio-economic Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities in the North West Region of Cameroon”. 2011
Narrative about the activity:
Summary of the Project
This impact study was conducted by the Bamenda Coordinating Center for Studies in Disability and Rehabilitation (BCCSDR) as one of the research activities related to the Socio-Economic Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities (SEEPD) Program. The SEEPD Program seeks to contribute to development with focuses on breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and disability through a five-domain area intervention, namely medical and rehabilitation services, education, economic empowerment, research and communication. This report describes a mixed methods study aimed to examine the impact of the Vocational, Rehabilitation and the Micro Finance programs on the quality of life of Persons with Disabilities (PWDs). The study focused on PWDs who benefitted from these programs in all the 7 divisions of the North West Region of Cameroon.
During the initial phase of the study, we prepared the study plans using an inclusive and participatory process appropriate to the context, and to engage in necessary conversations with several key people in the region.
Overall, the programs are having a positive impact on the beneficiaries and their family. Most of the respondents were excited to talk about the impact of the loan and to make some recommendations to make the impact more tangible, and the repayment schedule less heavy, while PWDs who received vocational rehabilitation proposed that a startup capital or loan should be accorded to them after training.
94% of those who receive the loans say it has a positive impact on their quality of live while 70% of those who had training in vocational Rehabilitation say their quality of live has improve.