The first trip of Grenna Kaiya as project manager of EBM INTERNATIONAL to Cameroon started as a real adventure: The Cameroon Airline Camair Co. currently doesn’t offer flights to the northern part of the country so the trip had to go to Garoua with a mission airplane of SIL (Bible translations) starting in Yaounde. The trip in the small five-seater went quite well including a stop for filling up gas and so we visited all the projects in the north just as planned. “Garoua is very hot and dry and it was 42°C in the shade. These kind of temperatures and the journey to destination were quite an adventure”, Grenna writes in her travel report.

The first stop in line of the project visits in the north was the Technical Center Garoua (CTG). It is quite impressive how big and diverse the training programs are in this facility. Besides getting the training in mechanics, they also offer programs for welding, carpentry, sewing, and housekeeping. In addition to the training programs, the center is receiving revenue from the garage and they are selling self-manufactured small machines for example oil presses or grain mills and devices that help to sow better and faster. Our missionaries Loïs and Nathan Minard are passionately involved in CTG and are engaged with the program as well as the product development.

In addition to CTG, EBM INTERNATIONAL also supports the CTM (Technical Center Maroua) in this region and the girls school Saare Tabitha in Maroua, about 200 km north from Garoua. Here, too, young adults have the chance to get into a training program that can change their future. Overall, in every training cycle the future of 400 young adults is being changed in all these facilities. This way, women get a chance at a life of independence promoting equality, which is one of EBM INTERNATIONAL’s fundamental value. The director of the girls school Cathérine Kolyang was so excited at a meeting and she told us: “The good training program gives young women between 16 and 21 the chance to go back to their villages and start a small business so they can support their own families.”

Missionary Sarah Bosniakowsi works in northern Cameroon in a hospital in Garoua. The hospital belongs to the reference centers in the region and it helps numerous people. Sarah is especially involved in the work with becoming mothers or young mothers with their babies. Currently the hospital is building another house for the birth assistance, which is almost finished. This way the care will be even better in the near future.

Beside the many project and church visits, the main reason for this trip was the retreat of the missionaries from Central Africa. In addition to the missionaries from Cameroon, there were missionaries from Equatorial Guinea (Marta Nombela, Maria José, and Jaime Rodriguez) as well as Katrin Kruse from Sierra Leone. During the retreat, the annual employee appraisals took place with general secretary Christoph Haus. There was lots of time for collegial exchange, devotions, and personal prayer. Magloire Kadjio, regional representative of EBM INTERNATIONAL, supervised the conference in Douala.