MTN Cameroon’s success has not been a smooth ride. In April 2017, the company was forced to launch a voluntary layoff programme to reduce its workforce and better cope with the economic situation.  MTN offered them dignified, structured and respectful support, including an attractive financial package, retirement or retraining preparation sessions and, in some cases, support for entrepreneurship or continuous training.

Restoring dignity to victims of obstetric fistula

She lost nine babies. Three children from her 12 pregnancies abandoned her. Her husband repudiated her. She is called a witch…  Julienne’s ordeal has lasted for decades. Because she suffers from obstetric fistulas. Ostracized by her community in the Djamboutou neighbourhood of Garoua, her suffering has left holes in her memory. She does not remember her age. She does not remember the age at which she developed the obstetric fistula from which she suffers. Now in her sixties, she has not lost her will to live. We met her in 2017 at the Centre of New Hope at the Protestant hospital in Ngaoundere. Two other women shared her room and suffered the same condition.

Antoinette’s condition had been going on for fifteen years. She had left the town of Djafatou in Northern Cameroon to live with her husband in Toubouro, but her first pregnancy went wrong.  She lost the baby and developed an obstetric fistula. Her husband repudiated her. She, too, did not give up on life. She hopes to regain her dignity as a woman after her second operation.

Asmaou has the same hope. At 31, she is much younger than Julienne and Antoinette but suffers from the same condition. Her first pregnancy caused an obstetric fistula.  Although the child survived, Asmaou did not escape social exclusion. Her husband repudiated her.

These three women were not the only mates of the Centre for Regained Hope. Around thirty women were waiting to be freed from this shameful disease that robs women of their place in the community.

They will all undergo surgery at the Protestant hospital in Ngaoundere in 2017, then receive care and be reintegrated thanks to a partnership signed between the United Nations Population Fund and MTN Foundation in 2013. This collaboration has relieved several victims of their suffering.

Aïssatou is one of those women whose suffering is now a thing of the past. We met her in Bélel in Adamawa, surrounded by her mother, daughter and granddaughter. The same goes for Madina and Haoua, who came from Tignere. Madina suffered from an obstetric fistula for 25 years. A pregnancy at the age of 16 that ended badly, destroying her marriage in the process.

If  one operation was enough to reintegrate her into the community, Haoua had a worse experience. She was married at the age of 14 and became pregnant a year later. Her baby was stillborn after two days of labour pains. She then lived with obstetric fistulas for 28 years. Her husband also repudiated her, but fortunately her relatives did not abandon her. Three unsuccessful operations later, she came across the programme set up by UNFPA and MTN Foundation. Haoua is now 42 and has found her smile again. Thanks to her small business, she has remained in touch with society.

Medical ambulances for the Far North

In November 2017, MTN Foundation donated three medical ambulances to the Government of the Republic of Cameroon. Two ambulances were donated to the Ministry of Defence and one to the Ministry of Public Health.  The equipment was intended for the Far North Region of Cameroon, which has been affected by repeated attacks by the Boko Haram sect. The aim was to improve medical response in the frontline zone by facilitating the transportation of first aid teams for emergency interventions and the immediate care of victims as soon as they boarded the vehicles.