At BERUDA we know that investing in women is one of the most powerful investments we can make in building a better future. Programs addressing women’s education and economic empowerment are not only beneficial from a human rights perspective, but they are transformative economically as well. That is why our PROMIC team have been enjoying getting out far and wide recently, to expand the reach of the successful BERUDA programme for women entrepreneurs. 

The PROMIC program provides microcredits and training to enable women to invest in their own personal businesses that when run successfully support family and community incomes. Trainings include financial and loan management, basic business strategies and record keeping.

We know that statistically, women reinvest much more of their incomes into their families to directly benefit their children. So it is women who are driving and equipping the next generation—the generation that can break free from extreme poverty.

These trainings pictured, took place with various women's church groups at Bamentoh, Njinikejem, and Sisia in Bamenda, and at mile5 Nkwen with the Nkwessi Women's group.

Mental health is a growing concern in Cameroon, yet it remains one of the most neglected areas in the country’s health system. Many individuals living with mental health conditions in the region suffer in silence due to limited access to care and widespread social stigma. Recognizing this urgent need, BERUDA is partnering with Global Support Link (GSL) to help improve the quality of mental health care in the communities it serves.

The Mental Health Challenge in Cameroon
Mental health issues—ranging from depression and anxiety to more severe psychiatric conditions—are on the rise across Cameroon. Despite this, most people with mental illness remain undiagnosed and untreated. A lack of trained professionals, limited funding, and deep-rooted stigma have all contributed to the isolation and marginalization of those in need of support.

A New Collaborative Approach
To address these challenges, BERUDA and GSL are launching a comprehensive initiative focused on strengthening mental health care and community reintegration.
In partnership with the  Cambridge e-Learning Institute, GSL will deliver a 6-month training programme designed to equip local medical professionals with essential knowledge and skills in mental health care, including counselling. The programme will be offered through a blend of remote and in-person learning, making it accessible for practitioners across the region.

Supporting Local Leaders and Influencers
Changing attitudes around mental health is just as important as clinical training. That’s why the initiative also includes a dedicated course for local leaders, community influencers, and faith-based groups. This course aims to challenge harmful misconceptions, promote awareness, and foster a culture of understanding and inclusion.

Reintegration and Long-Term Impact
Ultimately, this project seeks to integrate individuals with mental health conditions back into their communities with dignity and support. By improving care standards, training healthcare workers, and reshaping social attitudes, BERUDA and Global Support Link hope to build a more compassionate, resilient, and mentally healthy future for the region.

Join Us in Making a Difference
This initiative is a vital step toward better mental health care in Cameroon—and it needs the support of communities, professionals, and advocates. Together, we can break the silence, overcome stigma, and ensure that no one is left behind.

Beginning this week we're excited to host a group of student interns from St. Austin International University's Agriculture Departure for the month of June. The students will spend two days each week with us to gain practical skills in a range of agricultural activities. We held a welcome and induction session with our Director and staff at the Njinikijem Centre, and students and BERUDA staff alike are looking forward to learning and sharing with each other.

Over the last quarter, the BERUDA Mobile Eye Clinic has seen, diagnosed and treated over 120 individuals from remote communities, across the North West Region. These are mostly older women and widows who benefit from having health services visit them in their own homes, but who don't normally receive even basic health services due to their remote locations.

BERUDA is fortunate to have on staff its own trained eye specialist, Mr. Nkain Isaac, who provides the eye screenings, corrective lenses, and a range of treatments for these patients. There are, unfortunately, many patients who also require eye surgeries that are beyond our current capabilities, and available resources, but despite this, we do the best we can to offer essential screenings and treatments in the hope of preventing further vision loss.

"The work of our Mobile Eye Clinic is especially vital in these challenging times, as many of our patients face barriers such as limited access to healthcare, transportation challenges, and the ongoing socio-political unrest. We are extremely grateful for the donations that enable this service to role out this vital work, and we see the extraordinary difference saving and restoring sight makes to the capabilities and self resilience of the people of the North West Region everyday. "
- Director of BERUDA, Ngwainmbi Simon.

This year, we plan to extend our outreach to Mentang, Anyajua, Wum, and Njinikom, as part of our ongoing mission to promote healthy vision and improve the quality of life for rural populations.

“Yesterday, I was in the field in Belo with the PROMIC Coordinator from BERUDA to support four women’s groups through our ongoing microcredit initiative. PROMIC, which stands for Promoting Micro Enterprises, is a BERUDA project sponsored by Swisshand, aimed at empowering economically disadvantaged local women.

Through this program, women receive business training in entrepreneurship, followed by access to micro loans to either launch or boost their small businesses. We also provide continuous follow-up to ensure they apply best practices for business growth and sustainability.

Last month we focused on equipping participants with the necessary skills through training. This month, we are moving into the loan disbursement phase to help them put those skills into action and grow their businesses.

What has been great is that we've been able to address some of the problems the women were encountering in paying back loans and we've made some changes such as longer loan terms and scheduling post-harvest re-payments dates. This along with the refresher training on the terms and conditions of the loans has given the women a much more positive outlook on the program and they're energized about their businesses."

- Blessing Shelle is the assistant to the Director of BERUDA.

At the Agricultural Centre in Njinikijem, our commitment to organic agriculture continues to grow. Recently, we completed the replanting of cucumbers, we also planted turmeric, ginger, and watermelon as part of our crop rotation strategy. Monthly vegetable harvesting is ongoing, and we began harvesting green beans yesterday.

These efforts are part of our mission to promote sustainable, organic farming practices that protect both the environment and community health. We are preparing to launch training sessions for local community members, focusing on organic techniques and land preservation.

Looking ahead, we also plan to welcome students from across the region for hands-on training in agriculture and micro-enterprise development—offering practical skills and knowledge to support future agri-preneurs.

Warm greetings from the Belo Rural Development Association (BERUDA)! As we look back on the first quarter of 2025, we’re excited to share the progress we’ve made in the first few months of the year in empowering vulnerable communities. It’s been a busy and meaningful time, full of programs that are making a real difference in communities across the Boyo Division and beyond.
Thanks to the generous support of our donors, volunteers, and partners, BERUDA has been able to touch the lives of countless individuals, particularly children, women, and marginalized communities.
Your support makes all of this possible. Thank you for helping us build stronger, healthier communities where people can live with dignity, independence, and hope.
We welcome and encourage you to please read on to learn more about the work we are passionate about.

The first quarter of 2025 has been a rewarding period for BERUDA’s apiculture efforts. In January, we were honored to receive a prestigious award from the Cameroon Climate Journalism Network (CCJN) in recognition of our long-standing commitment to sustainable beekeeping practices. Our Director, Ngwainmbi Chia Simon, proudly received the award on behalf of the organization—an inspiring milestone that reflects decades of grassroots impact and innovation.

As we move forward, BERUDA is preparing to host regional training sessions with beekeepers across the North West Region. These sessions will focus on modern techniques, hive management, and sustainable practices, equipping local farmers with the skills to improve productivity and resilience in the face of climate and socio-political challenges. Informal trainings in areas like Mbueni, Mbingo, Wum, and Bamenda have empowered farmers with practical skills, boosting household income and food security.

This quarter, we celebrated the graduation of 10 young people from vocational programs in tailoring, ICT, graphic design, hairdressing, and more—giving them valuable skills for a brighter future. Others are excelling in secondary school and university, propelled by their own hard work and the continued sponsorship and guidance of many.
We continued our home and school visits over this period to provide counselling, educational support, and basic needs—especially for children living in remote or high-risk areas.
This is a programme that can always benefit from sponsors for the children so please be in touch if you'd like to contribute to this programme.

As we continue with weekly education sessions with our widows groups in the local areas, we have focused on topics such as maintaining good health through healthy eating habits and through the use of natural medicines that are abundantly available in the local environment. The meetings also provide a support forum where the widows come together to encourage one another as they navigate their common challenges.
Additionally, the widows are engaged in a “Tontine” arrangement where they save small amounts of money throughout the year, which they can later collect to purchase essential items like salt and cooking oil.
These weekly sessions not only focus on physical health but also provide mental health support, helping the widows cope with the trauma and emotional challenges they face due to the socio-political crisis. These education sessions teach coping strategies, stress management, and provide a supportive environment where the widows can share their experiences and feel empowered.

We are excited to announce the launch of BERUDA’s first Mental Health Project, a timely and impactful initiative aimed at building capacity in clinical psychology and counselling across Cameroon. This project is made possible through our valued partnership with Global Support Link (GSL) and Ana Pinto, a highly respected psychology lecturer and supervisor at Cambridge University and director of the Cambridge eLearning Institute.
Ana brings a wealth of experience, having contributed to similar mental health initiatives in India and The Gambia. Ana will lead two exclusive “Train the Trainer” online courses: one for medical professionals, nurses, and academics, and the second for community leaders and influencers. Each course will host 20 participants, who will receive certification upon completion. These trainees will later share their knowledge within their communities, creating a ripple effect of mental health awareness and support.
The executive director, Ngwainmbi Chia Simon and Blessing Shelle, who is currently coordinating the project, has already met with Ana and John of GSL via Zoom. Together, they are actively preparing for the first round of training. The selection process is underway, and candidates will be chosen based on a questionnaire and a written commitment to complete the course.
We are grateful to GSL and Ana for their commitment and look forward to the positive impact this project will bring.

As we look toward 2025, our resolve remains strong. With your continued support, we are confident in our ability to expand our outreach, strengthen our agricultural and empowerment programs, and continue creating opportunities for women, children, and marginalized communities to thrive.
Thank you for standing with us. You are an essential part of the BERUDA family, and together, we are transforming lives and building a more sustainable and just future

Fields of huckleberry vegetables have been planted at BERUDA in Njinikijem. The harvest and sale of these green vegetables will help support the basic needs of the children in our children's programme. These fields provide employment for three local people who will be planting, harvesting and selling the produce.
Check out these photos of our newly planted vegetables from April 2022.
Grow big little plants!

Here at BERUDA we are optimistically looking towards 2022 for peace, prosperity and opportunities to grow. 

Friends, what are you looking forward to in 2022? We'd love you to share your hopes with us, as we share some of our thoughts and reflections from 2021 and into 2022.

What we're excited about?
- the potential of the children in our Sponsor A Child Project :-). With 97% of the children achieving great grades in 2021, we're excited about the opportunities that education can bring.
- those brightly coloured little vegetables called cayenne peppers! For their huge potential in bringing community benefits - great health and income!

We're pleased to report that 2021 has been a hive of activity (pun intended) at BERUDA, and a wide range of our activities have been strengthened or have kicked off again after a period of absence. It gives us great pleasure to bring some of our highlights to you in this latest news.

Back in Business!

Two of our offices reopened in January this year. The Njinikom and Fundong offices are open and functioning normally with medicinal plants, honey, beeswax and harvesting equipment displayed on the counter, along with the friendly faces of our office staff. We're now looking forward to getting our Njinikejem-Belo office open in the near future. We intend to refill the fishpond after the fish were stolen during the crisis, recommence with the pig farm, poultry and the plantain farm as well. This will all commence as we raise further funds and as the security situation keeps getting better. But we're off to a great start.

​Honey sales and beekeeping

The year started off well with many of our beekeepers looking forward to harvesting honey from March onwards. BERUDA’S bee farm was no exception as luckily we still had a good number of colonised hives that have not suffered the effects of the crisis. We have been able to extract honey from our bee farm which sell in retail sized quantities in our branch offices, and our honey displays are looking great.
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Sales in general have been up and down due to the town of Bamenda facing numerous lockdowns due to COVID, which sometimes make it difficult for our honey supplies to get to the office on time, leading to out of stock situations. Unfortunately two different training sessions on beekeeping were unable to happen during the harvesting period of March through June due to roadblocks caused by the local crisis. However many bee farmers and interested farmers keep streaming in to our offices for specialist advice and we are planning to organize a mega training on bee keeping in the months ahead.

Healthy eyes

BERUDA has re-launched its mobile eye clinic for free eye consultations in Fundong, Njinikom and Belo. This is carried out by our specialist eye care nurse Isaac, who ran the clinics pre-crisis. We've seen a great turnout for the services during our sensitization campaign and it provides a much needed service.

​Sponsor a Child Project

The year started off well in the Sponsor a Child Project (SACP) with most children returning to schools and to their apprenticeship posts. We were able to cover the school fees of all our children enrolled in school and provide the resources they need to succeed. Two of the girls in the program wrote their H.N.D (Higher National Diploma) in June, each of them defending their projects and emerging with an “EXCELLENT” grade which actually made us proud.

May was a great month due to re-establishing contact with three children previously from the programme who we had not had word of for more than three years due to their location in a hard to reach area in a separatist stronghold.

The academic year is gradually getting to an end and we look forward to enrolling more children in schools and for apprenticeship.

​Cayenne pepper and Chicken breeding projects

Since late 2020 we have been running a twin project in Fundeng (Belo sub-division) cultivating Cayenne Pepper and raising chickens in an enclosed area. The project is aimed at creating employment for community youths, teaching them skills and providing productive activity designed to reduce the risk of youth joining the violence in the area.

The pepper is sown, harvested, processed and sold in the community and beyond, self generating the funds needed to ensure it becomes a sustainable social enterprise. The first few months of 2021 saw the project entering its second phase: transplanting the pepper into the ridges, the completion of the fence for the chickens, hatcheries and local driers. Some of the pepper planted for experimentation purpose was harvested and processed.

The blessing of being able to reach our communities!

BERUDA was blessed these past few months with a huge donation from Miva to purchase a 4x4 Pickup truck to ease movement around the communities to render services to mankind, for which we are grateful and have already commenced these services. A special appreciation to Miva for this support.