Cameroon Link Involved In SUFI Coordination Exchange By camlink, camlink99@gmail.com Cameroon Link participated in the first SUFI regional coordination meeting presided over by the delegate for public health at the Catholic orphanage in Deido- Douala on Tuesday, 29th May 2012. The key presenter during the exchange community of learning process was the National Project manager of Plan International Cameroon, Dr. Kwake Simon Fozo, who was assisted by the Zonal Health Supervisor, Dr. Simo Francis and Kondiji Kondji Dominique, the Littoral regional supervisor of SUFI. The objective of the exchange meeting with the 19 Health District Civil Society Organisations in the Littoral including Cameroon Link was to review activities undertaken so far within the Scaling Up Malaria control for Impact Project befor projecting specific actions for the future.

Dr. Kwake Simon invited the stakeholders to present executed activities in their respective jurisdictions and the impact it has had on the beneficiary populations. Through a participative drilling, the participants identified problems encountered during execution and global solutions were found on how to tackle them. The civil society organisations Identified their strengths weaknesses, constraints and opportunities during the interactive discussions before planning activities for the next six months.

The perspectives for better collaboration was also identified through the exchanges and discussions.. It would be recalled that Cameroon concluded a funding agreement with the 9th Round Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria to implement a 5-year project titled "Scaling Up Malaria Control for Impact in Cameroon (SUFI), 2011-2015 ". This is a "Dual Track" project, with the Ministry of Public Health as the first Principal Recipient (PR1) and Plan International Cameroon is the second Principal Recipient (PR2. Three Sub-Recipients (SR), include ACMS, IRESCO, and MC-CCAM. Plan is an International humanitarian, child centered development organization without religious, political or governmental affiliation. Child sponsorship is the basic foundation of the organization. Plan’s vision is a world in which all children realize their full potential in societies that respect people’s rights and dignity. Cameroon Link and Plan look at the same direction while striving to achieve lasting improvement in the quality of life of deprived children in Cameroon through a process that unites people across cultures and adds meaning and value to their lives by:  Enabling deprived children, mothers, their families and their communities to meet their basic needs and to increase their ability to participate in and benefit from their societies.  Building relationship to increase understanding and unity among people of different cultures of Cameroon.  Promoting the rights and interest of Cameroon’s children, especially as Cameroonian children are living in poverty and their rights to survival, development, protection and participation are not met. Through the community of learning process, Cameroon Link and other partners are supporting the Cameroon government in its National policy for poverty reduction. The projects respond to the four principal categories of child rights as per the UN CRC ratified by the government of Cameroon on the 11th January 1993, the African Charter on the 9th of June, 1997. These include: 1. Survival (health, Livelihood and water and sanitation), 2. Development (pre-school, primary school---) 3. Protection (birth registration, fight against violence---) 4. Participation in Children/youth groups, radio program through the use of community radio stations. Scaling up malaria control for impact pursues a number of objectives which include: •Increase to at least 80% the LLIN use rate in the general population, and especially among pregnant women and under-five children by 2015 •Increase to at least 80% the proportion of pregnant women receiving ITP2 by 2015 •Manage at least 80% of malaria cases in compliance with national policies and guidelines •Reinforce the management capacity of the National Malaria Control Program To achieve these objectives the strategic orientations are composed of:  Acquisition and distribution of LLINs to the entire population  Making Sulfadoxin Pyrimethamin (SP) available to pregnant women from the 4th month of pregnancy, during ante-natal consultations  Acquiring and making available Artemisinin-based Combination Therapy (ACT) in health facilities  Promotion of general adhesion to all project interventions through adequate Behavior-change and inter-personal Communication  Monitoring & Evaluation To achieve the desired impact, these above strategies must be accompanied by appropriate communication actions:  Advocacy for malaria control  Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) through the mass media with the production and broadcast of micro-programs and spots on TV and radio  Community Outreach BCC through interpersonal communication, namely, the production of flip charts or image boxes for educational talks, posters, and counseling during home visits by members of the CBOs at community level  Monitoring and evaluation activities at all levels. Plan Cameroon has recruited 10 Regional CSOs, 181 Health District CSO, and 15 500 CBO at Community level o assist in the implementation of activities throughout Cameroon. Cameroon Link took the opportunity of the regional coordination meeting in Douala to highlight its community of learning approaches that involves all stakeholders. For more, click on the following link - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0go150QdaBY