Maurine Jam from Cameroon
Delighted Member, Board of Directors of the Community Development Volunteers for Technical Assistance (CDVTA) Maurine Jam has accepted our scholarship to attend the Global Ageing Network/Curaviva Global Ageing Conference, 18-21 September 2017, Montreux, Switzerland.
Maurine is also a Research Officer at the Prime Minister’s Office and lectures at the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon.
“I am interested in policy issues especially as it relates to the ageing,” she says.
Recently Maurine has been engaged in supporting and advising various age care activities in Cameroon in a bid to improve on the country’s age care policy and find new ways and means of strengthening this sector, and reaching out to more elderly people.
“As a member of the Board of Directors of CDVTA, I hope to gain knowledge and skills for information that can take our Ageing program in Cameroon to new levels,” she says. “I hope to meet with people from other countries who work with the elderly and to learn from their best practices as well as share my experiences for better functioning.”
After the conference Maurine will be organising educational sessions with staff and volunteers of CDVTA so I can further share the knowledge gained at the conference.
Being a new concept in Cameroon, Maurine says there is less visibility on elderly rights in Cameroon. “Most Cameroonians are non-formal sector workers and do not benefit from pension at old age,” she says. “The majority live in poor rural communities and have an income of less than 2 dollars a day. There is poor shelter, poor nutrition, poor health and limited or no social welfare services.”
She says while there is an existing social policy has just been validated by the Ministry of Social Affairs, is still yet to become law by the government, and she says there is still therefore the need for lobbying and advocacy for age care issues in Cameroon.
“When I was younger I wanted to be a journalist and to this day, I still feel like doing a talk show and I write a lot,” she says. “Growing up with my grandmother was fun and I love listening to the elderly tell stories of their youth. I enjoy singing and like listening to music and dancing. I love adventure!”