Last year was a good year for helping educate women and children in Cameroon, according to leading charity on the ground, GMM Africa, a group we at Catalyst Exhibits do our best to help.

However, there is no time resting on their laurels as GMM have a lot planned for the coming year, from adding more needy children to the vital education program, empowering women by supporting their small businesses and also increasing the amount of computers they use in their office and schools.

Reverend Teh Francis [far right in above photo] sent us this update, containing a brief summary of 2011 and some of the key targets for 2012.

Dear Volunteers, Online Volunteers, Sponsors, Donors, Friends and anyone connected to GMM Africa,

We must thank you again at Goodness and Mercy Missions before we continue with this new year. All your good services and wishes have enabled us to do wonderful things to relieve the plight of the disadvantaged in the past. We have noted that with gratitude and thought we should let you know that you shall always remain special to us. Your labor has not been in vain.

In 2011 many children have been sponsored, computer labs created in 8 secondary schools, 160 women got direct funding to start small businesses to help educate their children, and children continued to receive some computer training at the office.

Gabey one of our partners in the Netherlands ended the year by buying a fleet of bicycles for the children, while some sponsors bought the same for their children. Paul of Catalyst Exhibits, a designing company in the USA, has renewed his commitment to GMM for the year 2012. He has been a blessing to this organisation, facilitating its transportation by buying a motor bike for transporting teachers and another motorbikes to be used as a taxi to raise funds that go to educating 33 children every year at Jinkfuin community.

Our objectives for 2012 are:

1. Connect more children to sponsors around the world and help them up. See www.gmmafricachild.org and help or promote the program.

2. Connect more women groups to funding opportunities empowering them for their children’s education. See http://anrworld.wordpress.com/

3. Continue to raise funds and connect more communities to computer access. See http://pctocameroon.wordpress.com.

4. Try by all means to get a van and improve our services to the communities. If any of you is interested to lobby for funding in this area, we can forward across the proposal.

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There may be no snow, nor Christmas trees, but there was plenty to celebrate in sunny Cameroon this festive season as GMM Africa, one of our favorite charities, celebrated the holiday. The celebrations took place with many of the children the charity helps take care of and educate, and the party was a great success.

Rev, Teh Francis wrote to us about the celebration and sent some photos.

“23rd December, 2011, remains a remarkable day in the history of GMM Africa, Cameroon. We are a non profit registered organization providing tools and aid to disadvantaged people and communities for a sustainable livelihood. This year the Xmas party, organized in honour of the orphans and needy children we sponsor, surpassed that which we have held in previous years.

New things arrived, in particular, a fleet of bicycles bought by our sponsor and partner Gabey in Holland. The children can now cycle at will. The bicycles will also help ferry them to school and back home. This helps lessen the stress that comes with trekking to and from school.

Paul and the team at Catalyst Exhibits, a design company in USA, has been helping in this area too. They provided motorbikes that not only carried teachers to school but helped in transporting the orphan children to hospital every month.

Read more and see some more photos after the jump.

The motorbikes have also raised a lot of funds that has helped many children at the Jinkfuin school and Acha Baptist College, in Belo. There was great joy at the party as we  learned that Paul had extended Mildred’s sponsorship for another year. Two other children also got sponsors that week.

Also at the party we gave certificates of appreciation and gifts to distinguished fellows at GMM Africa who have helped us carry out our program with great success over the years. They were Levi, Theophilus, Carine, Janet and Elvis. Recognition was also given to the sponsors, partners and supporters who have made a remarkable contribution to our success. The names of different sponsors, partners and their countries were read out to the children and to all present. The countries the sponsors come from are spread across Canada, USA, France, Guatemala, Australia, Korea, Sweden, Norway, England, Scotland, Ireland, The Netherlands and China.

You can pick a child and sponsor at www.gmmafricachild.org. For other programs, go to www.gmmafrica.org.

The family of GMM Africa wishes you a merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.

Teh Francis,

GMM Cameroon”

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Catalyst Exhibits has been helping out GMM Africa for a number of years and its CEO, Paul Stahlberg, is continuing his sponsorship in 2012 of Mildred, one of the kids in the GMM Africa education program. Some new photos of Mildred were just sent over by Rev Teh Francis.

Read ‘Catalyst Sponsors Mildred In Cameroon’.

We here at Area 3 [the charity blog for Catalyst Exhibits] are delighted that Mildred’s life has been changed for the better and that we will be involved in helping her, and other worthy causes, throughout 2012.

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Catalyst Exhibits has been honored to be able to help GMM Africa, under Rev. Teh Francis, advance and expand its education and sponsorship programmes. For the past nine months, our CEO, Paul Stahlberg, has been sponsoring the education of teenager, Mildred.

Read ‘Catalyst Sponsors Mildred In Cameroon’.

Teh Francis wrote to us this week.

To our friend, Paul Stahlberg,

Thank you for all your work and care. It has been a year since you started sponsoring Mildred and this has really changed the girls future, I think forever. It has lifted her from the poor state she used to be in and your sponsorship has even helped improve the diet of food the family now live on.

We are all proud at Goodness and Mercy Missions to have you as her sponsor, and also for the other things you have done to make this organization so essential to many people in Cameroon. They have all come up with testimonies.

Our Christmas party is coming up and I want you to personally honour Mildred by scribbling your greetings so we can print and hand over to her on that day.

Thank you again.

Teh

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It’s been a very busy year in Cameroon  for GMM  Africa and all the kids who have benefitted from their education and job placement activities.

With Christmas coming the group is in the midst of organising the annual party for the kids and their families, many who have little or nothing, outside of the school.

Reverend Teh Francis has been in touch this week to let us know what is planned.

“Thank you for all the help you’ve rendered to help make life easier for orphaned and needy children in this part of the globe. It has been really amazing to see the difference you’ve made in the lives of these children in the area of education, health and nutrition. It is very much appreciated by us at GMM Africa. You are all wonderful people.

This year we are organizing another Xmas party for the orphan and needy children at GMM. For the party, we buy stuff and share it with the children and their families. Stuff like clothes, shoes, toys, bicycles, books etc. We also provide a meal and give soap to the families. It is all a fellowship meal. We love these children and we love you who are helping them.

Send your greetings to these children at the party. You can also send a gift or a donation to make the day great. If interested, we can give you details.

Once again thank you. There are still children pending on the child sponsorship page. You can forward it to any of your friends who may wish to sponsor a child. See www.gmmafricachild.org and www.commit2africa.org.”

Rev. Teh Francis

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Reverend Teh Francis has been in touch recently to let us know how things have been progressing with GMM Africa and the various support and educational schemes that they have in place. As always, Catalyst Exhibits continues to play its role in helping out but they always need more help in supporting incredibly disadvantaged children with proper education as well as empowering women and teenagers in developing self-sustaining careers.

Dear Friends, Supporters, sponsors, donors, partners and any connected with GMM in any way,

With much gratitude in our hearts we reach out to you this early November with some updates of what has transpired and is going on in GMM Africa. We reach out to you because we could not have accomplished this much without your support. Our task at providing tools and help to rural persons and communities has been very much successful. This quarter we have created computer labs in several secondary schools in partnership with Computers4africa and HINT, a Buea-based organization. Some computers have been added to the institute at Belo as more needy children come round for the training.

We thank all sponsors of children with us. Those who have visited us in person have seen what great impact they make in the lives of these children in the areas of nutrition, health and education. Many of these children are still awaiting sponsors and you can see them on our website. If you find a potential sponsor, point them to www.gmmafrica.org and www.commit2africa.org.

Catalyst Exhibits, a design company in the U.S, through the negotiations of its CEO Paul Stahlberg, continues to help. Their motorbike taxi program with GMM continues to raise funds to help several children in school at Jinkfuin and at Acha Baptist College. We still need 3 bikes to help more children.

Our Children education through women empowerment program has grown to support 16 women groups in several communities. Women are trained in small business endeavours combined with savings and loans to members where they generate income to help their families in education, health, nutrition and household poverty.

As we expand every day, we badly need a van for field work and for easy facilitation of our activities. We have communicated this in previous updates and it is still our main concern. However, my main message today was to say ‘Hi’, and let you see how your actions to support us have been growing and impacting many lives. Thank you so much. With all our hearts we appreciate it.

Teh Francis.

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Education should be a right not a privilege but in some parts of the world, like Cameroon, it comes at a cost and a lot of the work in educating children falls to charities like GMM Africa.

Catalyst Exhibits has been working for the last few years in an effort to provide money and, more importantly, the means of making money, that goes towards supporting their excellent programme of bringing education to poor children.

Whether they have been abandoned, orphaned or live in remote villages, GMM Africa, under Rev. Teh Francis, has done a great job giving kids the education they need for a better life.

Teh sent us some recent photos and wrote to us with an update on how things have been going.

We thank you for your constant support for the work of GMM over the years. It has enabled us to reach out to many disadvantaged people especially children whose parents died and there has been no one to help them. We have also worked with rural women involving them in income generating schemes towards being financially independent. A lot of these groups have developed business skills and of are a great help to their families and communities. During the summer holidays, many needy children and students have been learning computer basics at the GMM centre in Belo. It will greatly help them as they get back to school.

The children some of you have helped and are still helping are all happy in school now that their school needs are met. This ensures a stable education. We really thank you for supporting these children especially those sponsors that have sent in a one-time donation or monthly donations to alleviate the situation of these children. You will never begin to understand the impact you are making to these children until you come here and see and meet those you have helped.

It pains us when some of the disadvantaged children we’ve profiled are still pending on our sponsorship list. Go here:  http://www.gmmafricachild.org/page_2033342.html. Many cannot go to school at all for want of somebody to assist them.

Catalyst Exhibits, a design company in the USA solved the problem for some of the children. They donated money for motorbikes that have been raising money which we use for the education of some children who have not had sponsors. We have directly helped about 135 children in this and hope to help more this year. The money will not only pay tuition but buy books and other school stuff. Thanks to Catalyst Exhibits!

Our deep concern is the most desperate cases where we cannot help. If you think you know someone who might sponsor a child, direct him or her to our pages. Visithttp://www.commit2africa.org/page_children.html and http://www.gmmafricachild.org/page_2033342.html

Also, see what it takes to sponsor a child with us at http://www.gmmafricachild.org/page_faqs.html

You can get more on GMM here www.gmmafrica.org.

Thank you again for all your care

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Debbie Valette, our ‘wunder-teacher’ in Boulder, Colorado, has done a great job with her unique after-school program, which we here at Catalyst Exhibits, try our best to keep helping out with funds, books or promotional material.

From previous stories on the Area 3 blog, you can see how invaluable her reading class has become to the kids and their grades. See

Struggling Readers Leapfrog Grades

Teaching Kids To Read In A New Way

Now it’s time to start thinking ahead for the coming year, so she’s given us an insight into what the program’s goals are and what they need to achieve those goals.

Debbie wrote: “As for plans for this year, see below…

First, I am replacing the 10-year old Mac in my classroom with a new Macbook.  Remember that I bought an interactive smart board last year with Catalyst money?  Well, I couldn’t use it to its full capacity because my Mac was not compatible with the board’s software.  I’ll get the new computer in six weeks (purchased at a discount through the district) and am so excited to explore the new possibilities.

I am on a Personal Learning Committee that is dedicated to exploring the latest research on improving a student’s ability to read. We are using a book by Richard Allington, What Really Matters for Struggling Readers, to guide our discussions and practice.  I’ve read the book and am considering the following purchases to support the research in the book. Here I outline his research headings followed by my purchase goals.

Research: Classrooms and libraries with more books produce better readers.

Purchase: lots of books of all kinds, including graphic novels–for my classroom and the mini-library for struggling readers within the main library

Research: Kids need lots of choice in reading materials.

Purchase: books, Playaways, magazines (based on kids’ interests), possibly iPods to download audiobooks onto, maybe more Kindles–we’ll see as the year progresses

Research: Kids need reading material that is grade-level appropriate and appealing.

Purchase: High-interest, low-level books

Research: There is a high correlation between fluency and comprehension. Kids need to work on fluency.  Lack of fluency is a major deterrent.

Purchase: recording devices to work on fluency

Research: Kids need to read a lot more if they want to get to grade-level (seems like a no-brainer, but not all schools give students time to read during the school day and many struggling readers never read at home)

Purchase: Snacks to keep kids well-fed and hydrated during the after-school reading program in my room (where kids read for 40 minutes or more a day0

I know that none of the above purchases sound “cool” or innovative, but the research on learning to read is not that deep: kids need to read a ton of self-chosen, grade-level appropriate books–and they need to be taught how to do it fluently.  Of course, I model for them through read-alouds, and we discuss literacy devices, etc., but basically kids need to read, read, read.

They will only be motivated to do so if they have a huge selection of highly-interesting books at their level–and time to read.  A constant stream of new books being delivered to the class (a couple times a month), mostly purchased based on kids’ requests, is highly motivating.  I could not keep this stream coming without the money from Catalyst/Paul.  I have an account with Amazon for 2nd-day free delivery.  It’s so great when a kid requests a book and it arrives two days later. I will also be spending money on supplies to maintain items like the Playaways and Kindles (batteries, etc.).  I bought a couple of stools for kids to sit on during reading time, as well.  It’s very motivating to have an attractive, comfortable reading environment.

By the way, I spoke to my principal recently and the 8th-grade reading growth scores on the 2011 state test far surpassed the district average. She was very pleased.”

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Last week we caught up with the Thailand art school project, run by Chatchada Kruakaew, for the first time in over 6 months. The travelling art program, which is designed to help children express themselves through art – especially those kids who have suffered a lot in the lives so far –  is going from strength to strength.

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You can see those here at  Happy Valentines From Thailand.

Now, despite the long break, we have just been sent some more great art shots. Jump now…

Chatchada’s travelling art program covers numerous districts in Thailand and is designed to teach children how to paint, express themselves and help them overcome personal tragedies or difficulties in their lives so far.

We do what we can here for Chatchada and her program but it could always do with some extra support.

If you’d like to help, then contact Paul Stahlberg, our CEO, at Catalyst Exhibits at pstahlberg@catalystexhibit.com

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