CAMEROON

In Cameroon, MLI partners with the Catholic Diocese of Kumbo’s Family Life Office, which has implemented our Circles of Life Program in 16 of 26 rural parishes as well as the region’s maternal health centers. Circles of Life combines AIDS prevention through abstinence and faithfulness with MLI’s patented Bead System of Fertility Awareness that tracks a woman’s menstrual cycle by observing physical indicators and using colored beads placed on a string to record them. The directors of the Family Life Office are Ephraim and Theresia Lukong.

In 2000, MLI helped to build the Koroum and Sabongari Health Centers, and in 2001, MLI introduced the use of nevirapine at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Shisong in order to prevent mother-to-child transmission of AIDS.

While not a core focus of MLI, we helped the Sisters of St. Therese (S.S.T.) to set up a womens' cooperative to provide practical education and life skills for women in this remote area. The St. Therese’s Women’s Cooperative began in 2002. The women are taught reading, writing, languages and math. There are classes in morality, child psychology, literature, agriculture, hairdressing, maternal care, business management, home economics, soap making, and sewing and knitting.