Emeli’s Smile Sickle Cell Foundation was once again present at the Administrative Baptist Hospital Mutengene on Saturday 2nd December 2023 for the FESTIVE SICKLE CELL-EBRATION. This event was to celebrate with Sickle Cell Warriors with an early Secret Santa Donation against Christmas and also to award winners of our Emeli’s Smile Creativity Award 2023.
Our volunteers came from different towns in Cameroon to show their support. We had so much love from the Hospital staff, especially Dr.Steve who called several times to make sure we had all we needed to have.
We started our outreach at exactly 9am with an opening prayer from one of the hospital's staff followed by a word from the Representative of the Hospital’s Director: Dr.Raphaël, thanking our team for the work we do for warriors nation wide and for always having Mutengene in mind each year.
Bongatan Zachius addressed the sickle cell warriors on behalf of our organization's. These warriors had left from very far distances to come and attend the event. To most of them, the educational talks given by our team members were one of the most important messages they have heard, especially those meeting us for the first time and had never been part of a support group or started consultations or understanding what they needed to do to keep healthy.
We had our volunteer nurse, Jam Emile, who gave some words of encouragement stating our founder, Miss Nora Molongwe, who is 42 years and a mother of 4 healthy children. He had a question and answer section. Some of the questions he allowed a trained medical doctor on site to answer.
We proceeded by presenting our winners and their creative works. We were so happy to come across a familiar face from last year’s winning list in the name of Kelton. He was our first winner last year and now came in as 3rd.
Kelton's mum had this to say:
We had our winners as follows. The 1st position was Miss Wantoh Jeannette. 2nd position was Ntah Boris and 3rd position was joint winners : Konga Kelton and Miss Claris Cheo. They all made a speech about their submission and their works. They had so much love from the crowd. We presented them with their certificates and envelopes.
Speech from Miss Wantoh Jeanette, 1st Prize :
We distributed food, savon, oil and toiletries to families as a way of celebrating Christmas with them. All the sickle cell warriors, nurses, doctors & our volunteers present had a goodie bag to take home. From our observation, everyone left with a happy face.
Lastly, we had another question and answer session from sickle cell warriors. Lots of hand shows from warriors during this session was to appreciate our presence, our concern for them, and sending encouraging words to our founder Nora Molongwe for always having them in mind and not giving up in the fight.
Speech from one of the care givers present:
This event was covered by TFY News. Media coverage was done by Raoul Shots. Our media personality, Clement Toh was present. Other volunteers accompanied our nurse Jam Emile from Bamenda to see the works we do.
Written by,
Bongatan Zachius
(Assistant Project Coordinator)
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