Thank you Judyannet for promoting the empowerment rights of persons with disabilities by donating start up capital to two deaf girls.

‘I never met a network of women who are so passionate about empowering every woman on planet earth until I joined world Pulse.  My mentor JudyAnnet is very passionate about the work I do for girls with hearing impairment, she donated startup capital to two of these girls’

Before joining Word Pulse on the 13th of February 2020, Mentorship programs were a dream. It’s not common in our context out here in Cameroon and besides the few individuals or institutions that offer any form of mentorship are extremely expensive. I sometimes even wondered why people needed a mentor when all information could be accessed online. Some few months after I joint World Pulse, I got an email asking me if I could sign up for the mentorship program. I responded immediately because I was anxious to have the experience of being mentored. Then I was paired with Judyannet. This is the best thing that ever happened to me in my working career. Thank you so much World Pulse.

Our mentor/mentee relationship has been super professional but our calls always start with her finding out about my family. That is so important to me because her lovely words of encouragement and so much concern keeps me psychologically very stable. Thank you so much Judy for your lovely and caring attitude.

My mentor has always had so much interest for my work from the beginning of the mentorship program in 2020. She has followed up my progress and keep track of all what we discuss and our action points from the first day we started having calls till date. I never met anyone so meticulous, organize, focus and always available to make inputs on my work even at short notice. I love the fact that she has this burning desire to see me excel always. She is such a motivating and inspiring leader who always encourages me to make use of any opportunity that comes my way. Judy will always say this with a bright smile on her face “Yes you can do it, I know you will do it, am so Proud of you”.

When the first cohort of mentorship program came to an end, I had in mind that I was going to plead with Jill and Dawn if I could continue with Judy in this present program. To my greatest surprise as if she could see through my mind, she told me she would love to continue working with me if I didn’t mind. We continued with our monthly calls. Thank goodness we both reapplied and were paired up again. Thank you, Dawn, Jill and World Pulse team, for your kind consideration.

Judy was more than happy when I announced to her, I had finally started my empowerment workshop for deaf girls and any other vulnerable persons. With her supervision and expertise, we designed advocacy and collaboration letters that brought more visibility to the center and also created more awareness for other organization to know about the empowerment needs of girls with hearing impairment and other persons with disabilities.

At our empowerment workshop we do not only do skill development but also source for startup capital for these women so as to ensure they become financially independent especially as our organization is extremely passionate about reducing or completely eliminating GBV. Most of our funding have been donations from my siblings, family and self-funded from proceeds of my beaded slippers, sandals and necklaces.

During our October mentorship call we were looking at my action points for November and December. I told her I needed to take a short holiday but was working hard oh my beaded work so I could sell and use the money to empower two girls I had just finished training. I told her that my greatest desire was to ensure these girls sell their produce this December as it’s a festive period and lots of people could buy to use personally or give out as gift. She loved the idea and so gave me some real good Tips on that.

To my greatest surprise I got up late in the night to this message ‘‘Hi Regina would like to donate to the 2 girls’ seed capital” I screamed and woke up my daughter to tell her. Tears of joy rolled down my eyes. I wrote back to Judy to thank her and she wrote back this lovely message “Your work is really inspiring as I have always told you and it’s such an honor to be here to witness it.”

I just couldn’t wait to announce to these girls. They were so excited. What a great way to give hope to these girls during this period of sociopolitical crisis and covid19 pandemic when life is so difficult especially for persons with disability. What a relief for me who was already working almost all night with barely three hours of sleep trying to raise start up capital for these girls, coupled with the role I have to play for my children and home as a single parent since my husband is still in jail.

Last week I signed in for thriving Thursday because we had to hand over the material start up kits to these two girls; Charlotte and Nyangwana . They were given assorted Kenyan beads, rolls of black and brown leather, and cash sum of 25000frs each (50 dollars) so they could pay a cobbler to produce the first four pairs of beaded work. Its our hope that they will be able to sell those and then get more money to produce more. Thank you, veronica, for being part of these celebration.

Thank you, so much dear Judy, for promoting the empowerment rights of these girls with hearing impairment as we continue to advocate that the government and other stakeholders including family members and care givers of these persons should look into ways of reducing financial dependency for these persons. They should do this as a matter of urgency especially as the crisis continue to escalate in this Region.