This week is the last week before the students have their “Easter Break” or in other words, the break between the second and third term.

On Monday I was scheduled to meet with the High Birth Rate group at the cyber in Buea Town. They are the only group this year who has decided not to do an interview but instead film themselves discussing the topic in depth. To do this, they needed to do a lot more research so that they were able to discuss for a decent length of time during their video. Sadly only one member out of three showed up but we still managed to get tons of work done! First, I prompted her to review all of the research she had already done so that she could assess what other sorts of information she wanted to research. She then moved onto web based researching the points she had just wrote down. I helped her sort through the documents since there was a lot to go through and none of her partners were there to contribute. Because it was such a one-on-one class, we were able to complete everything and now the group has enough information to do a discussion for the video next term.

For this particular research topic (High Birth Rate) we specifically looked into why high birth rate in general can cause other problems, why it’s a problem at all (causes) and some solutions. Some reasons for the problem are as follows: many people do not have access to contraceptives, they do not believe in the use of them (myths, religion, spousal disagreement, etc) and sometimes people still like the idea of big families for reasons of status and also more hands for work. Why high birth rate can cause problems is because people who are already in poverty or living in poor conditions are having more children. Many questions arise such as, can health and education facilities in the developing world keep up with an increase in population? What about access to food, water and shelter? There are also some who predict massive conflicts over land. More people = more land. You will just have to wait for their video to be released to find out some of the solutions they have found!



Here is a snapshot of the High Birth Rate group!

Two students from the Advanced YAN class at Lycee Molyko conducted their interviews on Tuesday after school. Cardaine who is researching Nature Conservation spoke with Mr. Masango who is the director of Green Cameroon and environmental NGO operating in Buea Town.

Jean interviewd Mr. Blaise who is the director of Human IS Right which is an NGO also in Buea Town about the rampant corruption in Cameroon. Both of the experts interviewed gave some fascinating insight to the magnitude of problems at hand, the reasons for the problem and also some solutions. I look forward to seeing their final videos and I hope you guys are too.






Have you heard!? Nearly all of the podcasts are uploaded onto the YAN website!!! Please bare with us as we upload large files such as podcasts, videos and even photos as the internet over here is challenging and sporadic in its speed!