19, August 2019
Chinese medical team provides free treatment in rural Cameroon 0
In early August, on the eve of the arrival of a medical team with free services, villagers gathered in groups of twos and threes, buzzing with tales of the wondrous Chinese doctors.
“Without them, I would have been dead” said Christophe Ndi Owona, the 76-year-old chief of the southern Cameroonian village of Ngat-Bane.
Before Chinese doctors came to his village, Owona had been suffering from severe headache for years. “Everybody thought I would die.”
The team gave him medicine and advised him to stop drinking alcohol, Owona told his folks. “Thanks to the Chinese, I am now as healthy as a baby.”
Ngat-Bane, like many other Cameroonian villages, has abundant wildlife and dispersed thatched huts, but zero hospitals. Villagers are often troubled by such health problems as rheumatism, typhoid, malaria, but most of them cannot afford medical services in Mbalmayo, the nearest town.
The next day, in the heartland of Ngat-Bane, a good number of patients from nearby villages gathered in a makeshift, but free and comprehensive clinic, lining up to see doctors from various departments, who are here as members of the 19th Chinese medical team to Cameroon.
For the first time in almost a year, 69-year-old Liliane Mfoumou felt relieved from her back injury after an acupuncture treatment. Before this, the mother of six had visited doctors several times in Mbalmayo, a major city in Cameroon’s Central Province.
“Medical checkups and treatments in hospitals are quite expensive, and I can’t afford them again,” Mfoumou said, expressing gratitude to the free clinic.
A Chinese acupuncturist inserted fine needles in Mfoumou’s skin at specific points. Thanks to this traditional Chinese method, which is applicable to many health conditions, Mfoumou said she “now can feel my back and legs.”
Michel Ndi has insomnia and heart problems, making it difficult for the 59-year-old to trek to his farm. He consulted almost all the specialists and was offered free treatments, including medicine, for his multiple conditions.
“Their kind and friendly manner heals you even before you start treatment,” said the father of 10 children, “I am sure that in the next two or three days, I will be able to go (to) the farm without difficulties.”
A total of 100 patients, aged from 20 months to 98 years, received diagnosis and treatments worth 1,500 U. S. dollars.
The free clinic ran for more than five consecutive hours, after which the folks offered the Chinese medical team a local dish called Kpem, a traditional meal made from cassava leaves.
China started to dispatch medical teams to Cameroon in 1975 and hundreds of medical professionals have worked in Cameroon since then.
Source: Xinhuanet
27, August 2019
What is the British Council doing in Africa? 0
From the southern tip of the black continent to West Africa and the Horn of Africa, the British Council is actively promoting British interests through ostensibly “cultural” and “educational” programmes.
But why does the British Council have such a strong interest in the African continent and how does it go about using “soft” power to realise both avowed and disavowed British foreign policy objectives in the black continent?
Cultural outreach, or cultural penetration (depending on the reader’s perspective), constitutes a core British Council activity. It is the Council’s bread and butter work.
But whereas the British Council frames its cultural outreach programmes as part of a broader narrative centred on local “empowerment”, the reality is that the Council seeks to identify and manipulate emerging cultural trends with a view to creating political and economic spaces for British interests.
Take East Africa as an example, where the British Council has been exceptionally active since the dawn of the twenty first century.
A recent British Council document entitled “Scoping the Creative Economy in East Africa” gives much insight into the thinking of the Council’s leadership, and by extension, the leadership of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Describing the “creative economy” in a primarily sub-national context, the document essentially calls for interventions at local or community levels in order to effect the greatest change.
The document identifies Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda where the “creative economy” offers the greatest potential. Conveniently, these are also the countries which Britain has aggressively targeted as part of post-Brexit trade deals.
On a trip to the African continent in August 2018, the former Prime Minister, Theresa May, announced that Britain had secured its first post-Brexit trade deal in Africa.
Writing in the Guardian on September 04, 2018, the British-Ghanian writer and broadcaster, Afua Hirsch, heaped scorn on May’s sweeping statements and assumptions in relation to the African continent.
Hirsch wrote: “If Britain wants to be a friend to Africa, it needs to stop looking to the continent to boost its self-esteem – “the shared history and cultural ties” of which May talks allude to Britain’s imperial domination – and its coffers”.
The British Council is also highly active in West Africa where, in recent years, it has aggressively promoted the English language. This strategy is set out in detail in a 2013 British Council document entitled: “The English language in Francophone West Africa”.
The aggressive promotion of the English language in fragile nation-states, beset by ethnic and cultural divisions, comes at a high political cost.
Take Cameroon for example, where a rebellion in the country’s western Anglophone regions has resulted in the deaths of nearly 2,000 people since October 2017.
Last week a Cameroonian military court sentenced 10 Anglophone separatist leaders to life imprisonment on wide-ranging national security charges, including terrorism and secession.
Source: Presstv