In Belo Town, Neighbors are Jumping on Board Reverend Teh’s Latest Fundraising Idea. Literally.

[The following is a post by guest blogger Kirsti Shields]

On a dry day the treacherous 10-mile trip from Belo to Mbessa – through Cameroon’s Ijim Mountain forests - takes four hours on foot. In the rainy season it can take nine or ten. Now, thanks a pioneering taxi program, a Belo elder reaches family in Mbessa in less than thirty minutes. A mother used to toting her child to hospital gets there and back in a morning.

Surprisingly, these are just the incidental beneficiaries of Reverend Teh’s innovative mission. The true beneficiaries are less recognizable. Most are between four and fourteen years of age. The majority have no immediate family to care for them – because they are orphans, or because their surviving parent is incapable of parenting them due to serious mental or physical illness.

Struck by the plight of children like Juliette, 10, who lives with her ailing grandmother – herself a struggling subsistence farmer - and ten other children, Teh Francis - local pastor, educator, and Jinkfuin village representative - conceived the Goodness and Mercy Mission in 2007. Central to his vision was GMM’s Sponsorship Program, which to date has found sponsors for more than 50 vulnerable children. But sponsor recruitment is a slow process; many children wait years for a match.

In 2009 Reverend Teh – working with Nabuur neighbors – founded Jinkfuin Elementary school to provide unsponsored youth with a subsidized education, but these children remained gravely disadvantaged. “We had to find a sustainable way of supporting them,” Reverend Teh recalls, “until they found a sponsor.”

“Running a motorbike taxi – with proceeds directly benefiting these children – was a logical idea,” he says. Many local roads are only passable seasonally, he adds and even under optimum conditions can’t be navigated on four wheels. Car-taxis operate on more serviceable roads but don’t depart until they are fully-loaded imposing lengthy waits – and crowded journeys – on passengers. The need was there, but the funding wasn’t.

Then, in 2010 Teh Francis’s project proposal caught the eye of Paul Stahlberg from Catalyst Exhibits, a US-based marketing company. With CE’s support, GMM first motorbike taxi hit the road running in 2009, picking up fares at a central point in Belo town and making upwards of 20 runs a day. Thanks to sponsorship by US moving company Bekins Van Lines – facilitated by Paul Stahlberg – two more bikes have been added to the “fleet.” “But we need more,” Teh Francis adds, “more, so we can help more children.”

The motorbike-taxi project has proved both profitable and sustainable. The 20-mile round-trip from Belo to Mbessa costs about $18 in the dry season – doubling when rain makes navigating the hilly terrain difficult. Shorter runs on better roads cost less. So far proceeds have “bridged the gap” for 25 unsponsored children like Juliette, and have also funded computers for an ICT program. “What we thought was a little thing has become a big thing,” says Reverend Teh. “Many have been helped.”

At www.gmmafricachild.org you can read the profiles of children – including Juliette - still waiting for sponsors. “Many are in desperate situations and need immediate intervention,” the Reverend Teh implores. Sponsorship starts at only $15 a month, but until there’s a cyber-equivalent of GMM’s taxis to get word where it needs to go it’s up to us to help spread the word.

Visit www.gmmafricachild.org for more information.

Let’s all get on board!