To summarize, ACB in Black, means that ACB is based on
suffering and sadness of People who stutter in order
to lead them towards light and hope (The yellow color
of the background ) in a perennially and happiness
environment (The green color of the frame).
The Logo of ACB is put on a strong slogan :
"Stuttering is not a fatality." This slogan encourages people to join us.
This logo was conceived By Dr Moussa DAO with the
artistry done by
Tiekoura TRAORE
The association obtained an official recognition from the national
authorities by getting a certificate on March 29th ,2002.
Moreover ACB would welcome the visit of specialists or
stuttering therapists
for conferences.
For these activities ACB would be grateful for any help, including
computers (even a second hand computer), books, cassette videos and
others things which will be useful for helping people learn about
stuttering
Cameroon by Joseph Lukong
The SPEAK CLEAR ASSOCIATION OF CAMEROON (SCAC)
started in 1987 as a family-based self help meeting
for the stuttering members of the Lukong family that
lived in the English speaking part of northwestern
Cameroon.
There is a proverb in the lamnso dialect, one of the more than 250
dialects spoken in Cameroon. This proverb is BOYOO DZE KIWO-OH
KIMO-ON KIKUR KIFAH'. Translated into English it says 'ONE HAND CANNOT
TIE A BUNDLE'. The proverb was derived from common sense knowledge that
one person alone cannot succeed in a major task, but when two persons
come together as one, it is possible for them to do several tasks.
United they can even cause valleys and mountains to move. It was in
1987 when one of my cousins was refused marriage to a young man by the
man's parents on the pretext that our cousin would transmit the
stuttering virus to their daughter's future children, that an idea came
to our mind to start meeting as a group so as to examine what we could
do to counteract the open discrimination that we have been subjected to
and also to explore other forms of therapies which are available. This
is how the idea of the SPEAK CLEAR ASSOCIATION OF CAMEROON (SCAC) came
into being.
Encouraged by what was being done for
stutterers that were members of our family group,
other stutterers in the village started joining. After
some years of existence, a constitution and by-laws
were drawn up for the association and later an
application was submitted to the Ministry of interior
in Cameroon for official authorization. Per
authorization N0288/RDDA/BAPP, SCAC is a non-profit,
non-political, non-tribal, and secular self help
movement for stuttering persons in Cameroon. SCAC is a
full member of the INTERNATIONAL STUTTERING
ASSOCIATION (ISA) since October 2001, and its
Coordinator General, Joseph Lukong, is a member of the
INTERNATIONAL FLUENCY ASSOCIATION, since February
2002.
Membership in SCAC is open to stutterers,
recovered and recovering stutterers, parents of
stuttering children, spouses of stutterers and
traditional herbalists involved in treating
stuttering. The main office of SCAC is in Douala the
economic capital of Cameroon with wards in various
localities of Cameroon. Our vision is like ISA's, a
world that understands stuttering. SCAC has links with
many stuttering associations and individuals in
Europe, America, Australia, New Zealand and Africa.
Through the Internet we have found a world of "hands" to help and we are beginning to learn more about stuttering. Although we do not have access to the World Wide Web, we have made contact with many new friends around the world through email. Through email we have been able to communicate with many persons from different parts of the world some of whom have been very supportive of our work.
First we contacted BV STOTTERER SELBSTILFE of Germany and Konrad Schaefers of that association immediately sent us very valuable books and handouts in both the German and English languages. Konrad forwarded our message to Stefan Hoffmann in China. Stefan is the International Stuttering Association (ISA) Vice Chairman and officer responsible for OUTREACH activities. He sent us a document of several pages containing valuable information and informed us of ISAD (October 22) which we had never heard of before. Stefan asked Michael Sugarman, the chairperson of ISAD and Amy Johnson to send us some posters. Stefan also forwarded our letter to Jaan Pill of the Canadian Association of People Who Stutter (CAPS) who put our letter on their website and put us in touch with Daniel in Uganda, another African like myself with whom I hope to share rich information on stuttering from our respective countries. Then Stefan wrote to tell us about the International Stuttering Awareness Day online conference and put us in touch with Judy Kuster who sent us some books about stuttering, CD-roms of past conferences which we could read, and emailed several of the current conference papers to us so we could participate in the conference from Cameroon. Judy contacted Dennis Drayna of the National Institutes of Health and he is interested in studying our family and has also given us additional books about stuttering from the Stuttering Foundation of America. We have recently become a member of the International Stuttering Association with a mentor assigned to help supervise our growth. We have learned a lot about stuttering in the past year. There have indeed been many hands that are helping us "tie our bundle."
In its struggle to let the world understand
stuttering and to make the world and Cameroon in
particular a better place for people who stutter, SCAC
has carried out the following projects and programs.
- Collection of books, video tapes and other
materials about stuttering for our members. We
have at our office some books about stuttering where
members are reading and learning about stuttering.
- Sensitizing the Cameroon public and the whole
world about stuttering. In Cameroon this is done
through religious bodies that collaborate very well
with us, socio-cultural groups, and community-based
organizations. Access to the mass media in Cameroon is
expensive. We don't have resources to pay for press
coverage of our activities. However, since the
beginning of this year our activities have been
covered free of charge by two very popular newspapers
in Cameroon. We have joined hands in our own country to "tie our bundle."
- Helping people learn about stuttering in our Cameroon. We have participated in Judy Kuster's online
conference on stuttering. Several letters and articles
from us have been published in various newsletters,
including the ISA's One Voice, Air Flow of the New
Zealand Stuttering Association, UDTYYK of the Danish
Stuttering Association, and the newsletters of the
Dutch and German Stuttering Associations.
- Collaborating with some institutions to sponsor
courses for our members. The first organization
that accepted our request is the McGuire Program that
ran a four day intensive course for 11 SCAC members in
March 2002 and has promised to run another course in
November. Also, the Starfish Trust of the U.K. has
agreed to sponsor one member from our association to
attend a three day intensive course in the UK in July
of this year. On return this member will teach the
techniques of Starfish in various localities of
Cameroon.
- Creation of a website for our association.
With the help of the ISA website group represented by
Benny Ravid of Israel, a web page has been built for
SCAC. Presently it is linked to the Stuttering Home
Page and the British Stammering Association's website.
If you wish, you can visit it at
www.stutterisa.org/cameroon
- Collaborating with various individuals. We
have established relationships with some individuals
in the Netherlands, the stuttering information center,
the association of speech therapists and the
stuttering association of that country to develop a
project to help spread information about stuttering in
Cameroon. Also, ties have been established between
SCAC and the New Zealand Speak Easy which has provided
information on stuttering and self help issues.
- Identification of families where several
members stutter so as to link them to researchers
interested in stuttering the genetics of
stuttering. Dr. Denis Drayna of the National
Institutes of Health in Maryland, USA has visited
Cameroon and studied 18 members of one family. He will
return to Cameroon before the end of the year to
finish this study.
- Identification of stuttering school children in
all primary schools in Douala. This is done with
the help of the authority of the Ministry of National
Education.
I wish to thank the many persons both within and
outside of Cameroon who have supported us to realize
some of these projects.
SCAC has developed a vision for Cameroon for the
future. After noting with regret that there are no
speech pathologists in this country and that the many
stutterers here still resort to very crude methods of
treating stuttering, and that many stutterers here,
parents and teachers of PWS, do not have much
information on how to deal with stuttering, we decided
to fill this vacuum and in line with our vision to
help develop a world that understands stuttering, we
want to create a SCAC STUTTERING, INFORMATION AND
COUNSELING CENTRE in the Economic Capital of Douala
with liaison offices in the major localities of
Cameroon. That center will be equipped with books and
other materials on stuttering. It will publish a
journal called SCAC INFO in both French and English
the official languages of Cameroon. We shall also
publish information packets on stuttering that suit
the socio-cultural and economic context of our
country. We shall have trained stuttering counselors
who will work here with our stutterers. We intend to
equip our centre with a computer and internet services
so that our members can have much information about
stuttering that is always available on the internet
which is still a rare commodity in Cameroon. We would
gratefully receive contributions in the form of advice
or materials that can help us implement this project
which will help stutterers in Cameroon . Should any
person wish to contact us it can be through our email
address lujotar@yahoo.com
Uganda by Daniel Othieno
Public speaking is not a joke if your stutter is beyond mild like mine!! The daily frustrations and embarrassments we face while speaking to large audiences , make the adoption of the avoidance behaviors, a largely preferred weapon. Unfortunately, this method does not seem to be the solution to stuttering.
My personal experience with public speaking has been both challenging and rewarding. I remember, not long ago, anything to do with speaking in public was unwelcome . Any attempt to do so was inviting myself embarrassment. However, when I got my present job, there was a complete shift in my way of life. The job was very demanding in terms of talking to the public. It involved going out to meet students and disseminating Red Cross messages. At first it looked like I would not be able to measure up to the requirements of the job due to my stammer. It was a tough experience, though in the end, it made me to what I am today.
The first major challenging task was when I was invited as the Tororo district Red Cross officer, to launch a Red Cross link in a secondary school of over 2000 students. It was my first encounter with such a large and difficult audience. After presentations by other guests, I was finally invited to deliver my speech.
It was a disaster!! By the time I stood up my heart beats had already
doubled and I was starting to sweat. The uneasiness and fear
were tremendous. As I delivered the speech the nightmare of bad stammer was realized as some of the students began to laugh. It was a very distressing moment. But all the same I struggled to the very end, until I said all that I wanted to say.
While back at home , the sad memory was still haunting me. I decided to read some ofthe stuttering materials I had received from our dear friends of CAPS, BSA, ISA, Stuttering Homepage and Institute for Stuttering Treatment in Alberta.
It was a wise idea !! I got immense courage and determination from the materials. So I went ahead with determination to organize several Red Cross Dissemination trips in schools across the district. In the end what was exciting was the kind of stamina and confidence I developed. In time talking to large audiences became a no problem to me.
The confidence building went hand in hand with improvements in my fluency. I realized I no longer stammered as much in front of the
students . In fact very few would now laugh at me. Instead some
students gave me the nickname HENRY DUNANT - the Swiss founder of the Red Cross Movement. I now feel much more comfortable addressing large audiences regardless of the size or composition.
My goal now is to start a self-help organization in Uganda for people who stutter.
You can post Questions/comments about the above papers to the authors before October 22, 2002.
Note: the map above is included with permission of World Atlas (www.worldatlas.com).