Who We Are

1. ADMINISTRATION

Introduction

The Movement for the Promotion of Youth Rights and HIV/AIDS Awareness (MPYRAA) is a youth centered non-governmental organization operating in the Southwest Region of Cameroon with its Head Office in Tiko, and two field offices in Buea and Kumba. MPYRAA was founded in 1998 and legalized in 2000 under the 1990 Law of Associations in Cameroon.

MPYRAA supports under-privileged groups within the communities on health issues and wealth creation through capacity building and information sharing using highly participatory approaches. Another very important strategy adopted by the organisation is grassroots advocacy. So far, MPYRAA has successfully covered four of the six divisions of the South West Region on Capacity Building, Home Based Care and Psycho-social Assistance to HIV/AIDS infected persons, orphans and vulnerable children (OVCs).

VISION
Within a favourable and supportive policy environment, Youths, under privileged groups and the aged will have their full rights and benefit from equal access and control over resources that guarantees a sustainable development.

VALUE
MPYRAA stands to establish a community free of the abuse and violence against the fundamental rights of the youths, voiceless and the old in the execution of its programmes. It also stands for better livelihoods through commitment, transparency and accountability.

MISSION STATEMENT
MPYRAA supports and encourages youths and under-privileged groups within the communities on health issues, wealth creation, social responsibility and provides capacity building and information through grassroots advocacy

OBJECTIVES
• Community mobilisation for the fight against HIV/AIDS.
. Organize capacity building Programmes for the youths
• Mobilize and sensitize communities on areas of interest
• Promote Family Life Education Programmes (FLEP).
• Educate the youths, rural women on sustainable natural resource management.
. Encourage youth entrepreneurship
. Youth mobilization for self Support and care.

  This could be summarized into two main points-

•    Empower the youths, the poor and vulnerable groups with information and skills/techniques so that they can play an active role in their social and economic development; and
•    Carry out grassroots and policy advocacy for attitude change in a bit to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, while controlling and managing the incidence of HIV/AIDS in socio-cultural and economic lives of the people.

Expected Results
•    Functional capacity of institutions strengthened;
•    Prevalence of HIV/AIDS reduced; and
•    Level of household income increased

ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE
A pyramidal structure exists. It ranges from decision-making, management, operational, administrative, to community partners otherwise known as beneficiaries. These organs are briefly described below:

The General Assembly
MPYRAA’s General Assembly (GA) is made up of well wishers and professionals from varying backgrounds. These people are the owners of MPYRAA and constitute the supreme decision-making organ of the organisation. They elect the Board of Directors (BOD) from their midst, write and adopt the constitution or by-laws regarding membership and the way MPYRAA should operate.

The Board of Directors
This is the decision- making organ of MPYRAA whose duties and powers are provided by the by-laws and guiding principles. They do business as the GA may direct them to do, scrutinizing accounts, overseeing programs and revising plans as well as budgeting.

Paid Staff
These are full time or part time employees including external consultants. Some of the full-time employees include the Director, Project Coordinator, accountant, administrative assistant, professional staff (gender, communication and health experts), and support staff. The Director is appointed by the Board of Directors, who delegates some of its duties to him or her, especially the day-to-day running of the MPYRAA.

MPYRAA’s staff strength is made up of permanent workers and volunteers comprising development, gender, accounting, health experts, as well as secretarial staff.

2. TECHNICAL PART
Brief Summary of Main Activities

MPYRAA is active in the empowerment of youths, women and children generally, but the last two years have covered mostly health and income generation aspects of empowerment. Health wise, MPYRAA has focused mainly on HIV/AIDS prevention, management and control, particularly provision of care and support to People Living with HIV/AIDS and Orphans and Vulnerable Children. The main activities are covered below:

 2007/2008

Activity	Target Group	Observation
Mobilized, organized, and facilitated the legalization of 35 groups into CIGs for agricultural activities	Women & Youth	CIGs mobilizing to fight poverty
Trained 15 women’s group on income generating activities	Women	Economic empowerment of women
Facilitated the creation of demonstration farms	Women ‘s Groups	Use of parliamentary micro credit funds
Co-trained 120 women on project implementation, monitoring and evaluation	Women from Fako, Meme, Lebialem & Ndian division	Surge for self-reliance
Trained 3 NGOs on community participatory approach	NGOs	Fight against HIV/AIDS
Assisted 25 communities to come up with plans of action for the fight against HIV/AIDS	Rural communities
Educative talks in schools	Youths	HIV/AIDS awareness
HIV/AIDS campaigns for women
Created showroom for non-timber forest products	Kumba	Income generation for MPYRAA

MPYRAA as a growing Regional NGO works in two thematic areas: HIV/AIDS and income generation. The target population is in the hinterlands, which necessitate the need for offices at the community level where the impact of its activities is felt. However, expanding MPYRAA’s activities thematically and geographically is hindered by the following problems:

Difficulties Encountered

Renting office space in all the divisions/sub divisions where we operate;

Get transport facilities especially four wheel drive to ply the bad roads;

Recruiting qualified and experienced staff for all the functional areas;

Acquiring adequate infrastructure and equipment for the offices;

Acquiring communication facilities;

Furnishing offices, especially in field sites;

Getting adequate funding to cover needy organizations;

Adequate participation in government programs/projects in relevant areas;

Having enough resources to share her field lessons with other like-minded organizations, etc.

Statement of Support

Based on the present HIV/AIDS programmes in Fako, Ndian, Meme and Manyu divisions focusing on care and support to OVCs and PLWHAs, MPYRAA is considering creating field-site offices and furnishing existing ones. The creation of offices is necessary as this will help improve MPYRAA’s field presence. At present, MPYRAA has field offices only in Buea and Kumba, Other field sites like Limbe, Mamfe, Bamusso, etc. require office space. Unfortunately, the past and present programmes implemented by MPYRAA do not cover administrative cost. Consequently, MPYRAA solicits assistance from donor Institutions in order to improve its quality of service delivery to the needy population of the S.W Region.

Due to resource constraints and the need to set practical, achievable and measurable objectives, MPYRAA has, for the time being, limited its interventions to 4 (Fako, Meme, Ndian and Manyu) divisions in the South West Region (SWR). The SWR is located between latitudes 4 and 6 degrees north and longitudes 8 and 10 degrees east. It stretches from the sandy thresholds of the Atlantic Ocean in the south, to the fringes of the Bamenda and Bamboutos Highlands in the north and north-east respectively. It is bounded to the north by the West Region, to the west by the Federal Republic of Nigeria and to the east by the West and Littoral Regions. With a population of over three million (3.000.000) inhabitants, the SWR covers an area of 25.085 km2, and harbours a wide variety of ecological zones. It is an important oil-producing zone and hosts the only oil refinery of the country. It is known to be the breadbasket of the nation; yet, the SWR is characterised by poor infrastructure and very limited off-farm employment opportunities. Since cash and food crop farming is the main activity of the inhabitants, the SWR is especially characterised by degraded or fast degrading farmlands resulting from shifting cultivation and other unsustainable pastoral and agricultural activities. The situation gets worse and more dramatic as one advances northwards from the Atlantic coast in the south.

The SWR is among the most enclaved regions in the country. In Ndian and Manyu Divisions that share boundaries with south-eastern Nigeria and are cut off from the rest of the country by poor road and telecommunication infrastructure most of the year, there is a lot of potential to tap from the vast and relatively unadulterated forests. The Korup, Takamanda, Bayang-Mbo, Ejagham and Bachuo’ntai are four of such forests with huge natural resource and ecotourism potential. In spite of these negative socio-economic trends, the SWR is one of the highest scholarised zones of the country. Each year the six universities in the country churn out about 2000 Cameroonians of South West origin to join the swelling ranks of unemployed youth. Social exclusion is thus rife and this gives rise to negative traits such as loss of self-esteem, prostitution and crime. The SWR is one of 2 Anglophone provinces in a country of 10 regions. Like minorities everywhere, English-speaking SWR suffers its own share of marginalisation perpetuated by the French-speaking majority. Since the introduction of multi-part democracy in Cameroon in the 1990s, elections in this part of the country have invariably been marred by massive rigging as well as low voter registration and turnout, due essentially to the deliberate disenfranchisement of part of the electorate