In Cameroon, as ias the case elsewhere for the Pygmy communities of Africa, the schooling rate of children is low, about 5–10%. The mobility of the communities often entails the presence of the children in the forest for months at a time during the hunting and gathering seasons.
Nowadays many Pygmy communities, particularly those that have left the deep forests, want a school education for their children. Literacy will allow them to have direct access to the outside world, to make themselves understood by government officials, to free themselves from the wardship of their Bantu neighbors, and the be able to calculate in their financial dealings.
Many Bakola-Bagyéli communities, however, prefer forest camps situated further away from the tracks than the villages lying by the side of trunk roads or close to Bantu villages.
A few dozen kilometers from Lolodorf, a Bakola community has chosen to remain isolated in the heart of the forest, a few hours’ walk from the asphalt track. The Nabonzuondi camp which, according to its inhabitants, translates as Gudgeon River, is composed of three hamlets, Sabal, Biwambo and Biyuele, a few hundred yards apart, where several families live in and around a hilly, even mountainous, wooded area with several rivers that can change into tumultuous streams, if not cascades.
Despite their wish for seclusion, the people of Nabonzuondi would like to send their children to school in the village of Ngoyang, along the Lolodorf track, a few dozen kilometers away.
The walk along the forest trail is arduous, with high gradients. The children (about twenty of them) cannot walk there and back every day.
The community owns a small plot of land by the side of the trail at Mill, a hamlet near Ngoyang. They would like to build a hall of residence there, for the children to sleep during the school weeks.
Goals : building and outfitting a hall of residence for the children of Nabonzuondi village to be schooled at Ngoyang.
The budget is about 5 million FCFA (c. 500 €)
Person in charge : Paul-Félix Mimboh of Cerad, a teacher in the village of Ngoyang.