|
|
SPEAK CLEAR ASSOCIATION OF CAMEROON (SCAC)
REPRESENTED AT THE SEVENTH TRIENNIAL CONGRESS FOR PEOPLE WHO STUTTER IN
PERTH WESTERN AUSTRALIA IN FEBRUAY 2004
The SCAC is gradually gaining the recognition and admiration of the
International Stuttering Community. Recently, she was represented at the
7th triennial congress for people who stutter and the general assembly
meeting of the International Stuttering Association, ISA that took place
in Perth Western Australia. Joseph Lukong represented the SCAC at this
international come together and in recognition for the work that the
SCAC has been doing for people who stutter both in and out of Cameroon,
Joseph Lukong was elected into the board of Directors of the
International Stuttering Association, the ISA for the a mandate of three
years. The SCAC was also chosen during this congress to host an African
stuttering conference in October 2005 that she would be organizing with
the support of the INTERNATIONAL STUTTERING ASSOCIATION, ISA. The
conference will bring together people who stutter, speech professional
and researchers from Africa and the other parts of the world and an
important project called INTERNATIONAL
SPEECH PROJECT-STUTTERING (ISP-S) will be launched. This project aims at
making stuttering speech therapy services available to many nations of
the developing world.
The SCAC is very appreciative to the Australian SPEAK EASY ASSOCIATION
and the INTERNATIONAL STUTTERING ASSOCIATION that assisted its delegate
to make the long trip to Australia for this congress. It is hope that
SCAC will be represented again at the next world
congress for people who stutter that is billed for Croatia in September
2007.
ISAD 2002 CELEBRATION IN CAMEROON.
The activities marking the 2002 edition of the International
stuttering awareness Day ISAD started here in Cameroon on Saturday the
19th of October 2002,
with a radio broadcast over one of the radio stations here in
Douala(CRTV), of the interview Joe Lukong the Coordinator General of
SCAC did the previous day with a journalist of that radio station. Joe
talked about stuttering in the world, Cameroon , what SCAC was doing to
better the situation of stuttering people in
Cameroon and the world and about the activities of ISAD that were coming
up on Tuesday the 22 of October.
In the evening some 29 SCAC members dressed in their SCAC T shirts, went
to the Douala International Airport to receive Clare Thomas from the
Fluency Trust of the Uk who was coming to share her speech therapy
knowledge with stuttering persons in Cameroon. Before Clare's arrival,
SCAC members talked to many persons in the airport about stuttering and
the work of SCAC.
On Sunday 20th October, Clare and some SCAC members attended church
services and during the service 20 minutes was given to Clare and the
other
SCAC members to talk about stuttering and the work of SCAC and her
activities for ISAD 2002.
On Monday the 21st SCAC members and calre visited some schools in Douala
and talked to many teachers of PWS and left out hand outs having useful
information on stuttering. It should be noted that some 2768 stuttering
children
have been identified by SCAC volunteers with the help of parents and
educational authorities in three towns in Cameroon.
On Tuesday the 22nd of October, SCAC members dressed in their T Shirts
assembled at the SCAC office and collected some information sheets on
stuttering and the questionnaires that we had been prepared with
the help of Clare to use for that day. We did a walk of more than 20 km
around the major spots in Douala and talked to many people. We ended by
addressing a large crowd at a bus station in Douala and in the evening
we had a round table discussion on the topic LET YOU STUTTERING NOT HOLD
YOU DOWN.
On Wednesday the 23 Clare did a training session for some 20 SCAC
volunteers who will work with some PWS. Clare who specializes in
stuttering children shared her wealth of experience with many people
here in Cameroon.
Distribution of information packages to our volunteers who where to go
out to do the ISAD walk in some streets here talking to people about
stuttering.
Volunteers snapped infront of our office and meeting place before going
to the streets on that day.
After the walking and talking in the street we addressed a crowd at a
moto park here and later went to a near by rest house for a drink and
finished discussing about our round table conference that was to take
place that evening
Mothers of stuttering children who where happy to listen to the talk our
guest and therapist who specializes in children who stutter from the UK
had given them.
ONE HAND CANNOT TIE A
BUNDLE
Our journey to the ISA family ...
How it all started.
This article is written for those our
very dear and special friends who stood by our side and
guided us during this year's online discussion on
stuttering and supported our candidature for admission as
a member of the Great Family of the INTERNATIONAL
STUTTERING ASSOCIATION (ISA). It would be appropriate for
me to make a brief review of how we travelled to join
this great and wonderful family. After we had
successfully created th 'SPEAK CLEAR ASSOCIATION OF
CAMEROON SCAC' and obtained recognition from the
competent government departement here, this being the
Ministry of Interior or what in some countries is called
the Ministry of Home Affairs, a proverb in my mother
tongue immediately came over to my mind which I decided
to put into practise with the hope that it would give me
the expected benificial results as has always been the
case when I apply this proverb to all my ventures.
This proverb is BOYOO DZE KIWO-OH KIMO-ON KIKUR KIFAH'.
It is in the lamnso dialect, one of the more than 250
dialects spoken here in Cameroon. Translated into English
language as 'ONE HAND CANNOT TIE A BUNDLE'. The proverb
was derived from common sense knowledge which is to the
effect that one person alone cannot succeed to do a
majortask, but when two persons come together as one, it
is possible for them to do several tasks. United they can
even cause valleys and mountains to move.
SCAC having this belief in mind and with her mission of
empowering, it's members here, she decided to knock at
the doors of both local and intentional sister
associations that could collaborate with her to achieve
this mission. We knocked at the great door of BV
STOTTERER SELBSTILFE of Germany and Konrad Schaefers of
that association answered our call. Immediately he
answered our call and sent to us very valuable books and
handouts in both the German and English languages. This
literature has been of immense assistance to us for apart
from the book LET'S TALK STAMMERING', we had no other
book that we could use as a source of our reference.
Thanks a lot Schaefers. He didn't just end there but,
immediately transmitted our call to Stefan Hoffmann, ISA
Vice Chairman and officer responsible for OUTREACH
activities for that association. From far off China,
Stefan answered our call. He sent to us a document of
several pages containing valuable information concerning
ISA and the various addresses of it's Board members. He
informed us of ISAD (October 22) which we had never heard
of before and informed us that he was to contact Michael
Sugarman, Chair person of ISAD to send to us some posters
from ISAD 2001. Shortly afterwards, Michael informed us
that he had asked Amy Johnson to send those materials to
us. Johnson's reaction was immediate - the said materials
were dispatched immediately in the next flight that was
destined for Africa and within the shortest time we had
them. Thanks very much Stephan, Mike and Johnson for we
have received those materials and proper use has been
made of them and the public here through those posters
pasted in several positions in (Douala) Cameroon, many
people are already aware of stuttering and ISAD. From
Stefan's letter to us, we discovered that one of ISA's
priority is to outreach people in several areas of the
world - Africa included.
What was SCAC to, do about it's admission into ISA ? We
reflected very much on this. We are still a very young
organisation and still struggling to stand on our feet.
Could we fulfill the required conditions for admission ?
If admitted are we going to measure up with much bigger,
well structured and organised associations from other
parts of the world notably those of the Western world ?
We decided to email ISA's chairman Dr. Mark Irwin and to
hear from him - Stephan even suggested we contact him. No
immediate reply was coming from Dr. Mark to our two
appeals. We started losing all hopes. SCAC cannot be
admitted was our feeling and a feeling of frustration.
As we were losing hope gradually comforting news came to
us all the way from Canada, from Jaan Pill of the CAPS.
How did he come to know us ? ... through the usual
benevolent Stephan who had sent copies of our letters
sent to him to Jaan. Do you know what Jaan did with our
letters ? He placed them at the websites of caps- very
big publicity for us indeed. Thank you a million Jaan.
Jaan also put me in touch with Daniel of Uganda, another
African like myself with whom I hope to share rich
information on stuttering from our respective countries
as we have a somewhat, very similar cultural background.
On the 30th of September still our Stefan wrote to us to
announce the starting on 1st October of this year's
online discussion on stuttering. That was very good news
to other to whom he had addressed the message. It was bad
news for us of SCAC. I can hear you asking what's bad in
that news. It wasn't the news itself that was bad, but
the fact that we could participate in the online
discussion on stuttering with interesting papers from all
over the world because we are having no access to the web
sites. I, Fabian, Florence and Peter reasoned over this
issue for quite some hours. At last Fabian came up with
an idea. 'Joe' he said 'I have got an idea'. 'What idea,
boy ?' was my question. 'Let's inform Stefan, Jaan,
Johnson about our handicap and maybe they can have and
idea on what to do for us to participate in the
conference.' 'Would that not be over asking from these
people who have done enough for us, let's not override a
willing horse to death' was Florence's own view. After
debating for some time, our views overshadowed Flo's and
I sent emails to these gentlemen to inform them of our
handicap. In the mean time I had seen from the message
sent to us by Stefan that if any person had problems
concerning operating the website, he should contact Ms
Judy Kuster whom he described as the 'FOUNDER OF THE
CONFERENCE'.
I then took a rather timid decision to contact Judy whom
I did not know and posed to her the problems I had - that
of having access to the website. That was Monday evening
and after sending my message to Judy, she replied and
informed me that she was to send me copies of the past
conferences on the CD-roms and some books on stuttering.
I am still waiting for the said materials but I have made
arrangement with one gentleman here to use his computer
to play the CD-roms for those past conference. (I hope
and pray that Judy should even still sent that of this
year's conference to me since I did not have all the
papers presented). Still, Judy accepted to copy questions
from the conference and to post them directly into my box
and any questions or comments I had were to be sent to
her to have them posted to the persons concern. Similar
answers came from Jaan and Johnson. Judy was very
cooperative to me all through the conference. My
questions as well as that of other SCAC members were
posted to the various presenters and our answers sent to
my box. What gymnastics she played to have our answers
and questions from and to the various presenters is what
I do not know. Through her I had answers from Russ, Tom,
Dr. Denis, Mike, Louis and others. She is actually a 'wonderful'
lady if I can be permitted by Russ to borrow his words to
describe her. Avery mighty thank you to you Judy. Same to
Johnson who sent many articles to my box.
Jaan, you made me and SCAC to feel that we 'aren't alone'
but we are actually with great friends like you. And that
'one hand alone can not tie a bundle'. I hope you agree
with me as far as that is concern. Jaan sent the highes
number of articles into my box during this conference.
One particular day on opening my box it was discovered
that I had 67 unread messages and about 64% of this
number was from Jaan. A great job indeed that Jaan did
for us. I can admit that since I started working for SCAC
these past three weeks have been the busiest I have ever
had moving from the telephone booth with the internet to
my house and the residence of Gara Peter that we use as
our temporal working place. Printing and sending of mails
was also a very great handicap I had. My Special friends
had sent the required stuff but how was I to have all
retrieved from the computer as my resources were already
getting dried off especially considering the quantity
that had been sent ? Fabian and Peter gave me the needed
resources at the moment most needed - all the articles
sent to us have been completely retrieved from the
computer. Thanks too, to the understanding and
cooperation given us by Pascaline and Louis of the
Internet servcie who gave us a 5 % reduction on the
papers we printed or sent. I have to say a big thank you
to them and hope they will still cooperate with us during
next years online conference so that we can participate -
many of us from SCAC.
As the conference was gradually going to an end, and we
had almost forgotten about our request for admission into
ISA, the news came like a bomb and from the Voice of ISA
chairman himself right over there from Australia SCAC HAS
BEEN ADMITTED INTO ISA and a mentor appointed to help
supervise our growth. There was total joy in all SCAC
members after they got this news. News of this was sent
to our special friends and all of them reacted very
favourable to this news. On celebrating ISAD 2001
yesterday, we were also celebrating our admission into
SCAC. We shall still discuss during our bi-monthly
meeting of 28th October 2001, how we shall celebrate with
members of the public our admission into ISA. When we
shall have a report on how ISAD was celebrated in our
Kumbo Ward, we shall then compile a final report and send
to you people.
Dear Special friends, I know that I have been long in
this article, but this is just due to the joy I have in
me. I know most of you have worked hard during this
period of the conference and might surely deserve some
rest. The only plea that SCAC is sending to you is that
after this conference you people, I mean our good ladies
and gentlemen should not forget us. We shall still be
depending on your usual support for us to grow. We have
just crossed on river in our long journey having several
other rivers to cross in our struggler to empower the
situation of stutterers here. Let's just have as a target
the fact of bettering the situation of stutterers all
over the world and note should be taken of the fact that
anywhere in this global village where the situation of
stutterers is still not good, will be a thread to
everywhere where the situation of stutterers is already
improved. SCAC will do all it can to better the
conditions of stutterers here and why not create contacts
for ISA in the neighbouring countries around the Central
African sub region here. Thanks a lot for your
cooperation
Joseph Lukong, Coordinator General of SCAC
|
