Support a village of Bagyeli/Baka Pygmies in Cameroon

Help us to carry out an important project!

The project "BAKA" by Dokita cofinanced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has officially ended on 31.12 in 2009 is now continuing with the help of the local authorities, a Spanish NGO, with private funds and through a "Remote Support" in favor of of the single villages.

The project is based on simplicity of means, adapted to the rhythms of the population, contained in the costs, in order to help the Baka and Bagyeli in their choices to meet the different types of problems caused by the social and environmental changes. The primary activities have been scheduled in conjunction with them based on their basic needs, nutrition, hygiene, health, education and training, with time and methods compatible and suitable to their way of life. The interventions involve 23 villages/camps in the districts of Meyomessi, Djoum and Mintom in the south east of Cameroon, near the border with Gabon and Congo Brazzaville.

So far we have founded, together with the villagers, the CAR (Community of Rural Action) with a total of 2,032 members, it was formed the health personnel, 54 teachers for the preschools, agents for agricultural development and many other specialists. We set up 19 public fields where the parents of the children can cultivate corn, bananas, bananas plantain and other vegetables to integrate their diet and to "pay" the fees for the school. We have introduced a system of indirect reciprocity (SRI) similar to the "Bank of the Time" to give community members the opportunity to work and earn money to pay for medicines, health care and literacy in the preschool center. Regard to the integration of the Baka Pygmies and their neighbors Beti/Bantu, it has been made a lot of progress. Seen their positive engagement, last year the Baka finally allowed the Beti to adhere to the CARs and together they founded two Unions of Community of Rural Action (UCAR), which function as local councils, according to the principle of subsidiarity.

In return, however, they asked the Beti to change attitudes in their regards and to stop marginalizing them in terms of socio-economic development. The Beti accepted and together they agreed to create a socio-economic integration in the CAR, based on equality and reciprocity. We're just at the beginning and it will take a few more years before the CAR and the UCAR will become economically independent and before they are able to support the maintanence of the schools, the remuneration of the literacy and health care professionals and the cost of their continuing training.

Recently, we extended the project also to some pygmy villages of the ethnic BaGyeli and Bakola involving the Communities of 10 Bantu-Pygmy villages/camps located in the Districts of Lolodorf, Bipindi II, Kribi, Campo-Ma'an, Akom II, Department of Ocean, Province of South Cameroon. The project entitled "Pre-schooling and training of Pygmies and Bantu in the Department of Ocean" started in April 2011 and is co-financed by the CEI (Italian Episcopal Conference) and has a duration of 24 months. Its objective is to promote the socio-economic and cultural cooperation between Pygmies and Bantu, and in particular to promote equal access of the Pygmy and the Bantu population to pre-schooling of children and to vocational training.

DOKITA will lend them a hand - maybe with your help

If you want to help us to cover the costs of the project you can do this in two ways: through a free donation or through our promotion of "A Fork for Africa" by making a donation of at least 20 €. Please report this with the contact form writing under "Message Subject", "A Fork for Africa - Pigmy villages " specifying under "enter your message" your mailing address for the shipment of the pendant (for the high shipping cost we will only send to italian adresses ). Do not forget to send the receipt of your donation by fax to 06 66152194 or by mail to < This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it >. After this we will send immediately a fork- Keychain / Pendant to the indicated adress. Those who pay by credit card or PayPal must only report at the end of the transaction under the heading of the donation donazione> "a fork for Africa; Pigmy villages"