Before the outbreak of COVID-19, Sonia and her family were living with the upheaval of the civil war which is raging in Cameroon’s two English speaking regions, a crisis that has led to the internal displacement of 680,000 people, with girls and women among the worst affected.
Before it was closed to control the spead of the disease, Sonia attended the Children Community Support Structure (CCSS) in her village, which is an education centre for children who have no access to school, teaching basic literacy and numeracy skills.
These structures were set up under a partnership between Plan International and the Education Cannot Wait Fund, in response to the closure of schools in the North West and South West regions of Cameroon since 2016, due to the ongoing conflict in the two regions.
Sonia is just one of thousands of girls in the South West and North West regions of Cameroon who are caught between the effects of the conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“So far, we are working in 176 communities across the two regions and have developed a plan to extend our response to more communities in need; with the availability of more funds, we shall be able to extend our operations to these areas,” says Francesco Kabirou, Plan International’s Emergency Response Manager for the North West / South West Response in Cameroon.
