First Lady and UNESCO’s Goodwill Ambassador for Education and Social Inclusion, Mrs. Chantal Biya, has donated an additional consignment of teaching equipment to the South Regional Delegation for Basic Education to boost awareness on HIV/AIDS in the school milieu in a bid to reverse its prevalence in the region.

The video data projectors, projector screens, stabilisers, computer sets, printers and photocopiers, all worth over FCFA 4.4 million, were handed over by the Director of the Chantal Biya International Reference Centre for Research on the Prevention and Treatment of HIV/AIDS (CIRCB), Prof. Alexis Ndjolo, on Friday November 14, 2014 in Yaounde. The donation fell within the framework of activities initiated by Mrs. Chantal Biya and jointly implemented by CIRCB, UNESCO and the Basic Education Ministry.

“Teachers will use this equipment to sensitise in classrooms from where knowledge on HIV/AIDS will be spread throughout the community,” said Mrs. Rose Ateng Jaji Mbah, Technical Coordinator of the Programme for the Fight Against HIV/AIDS in the Ministry of Basic Education.

To Prof. Alexis Ndjolo, the donation concretised the promise made on June 21, 2014 in Ebolowa during the launch in the South Region of the First Lady’s “Social Vaccine” concept; a set of awareness strategies employed to ensure the prevention of HIV/AIDS. During that occasion, experts from CIRCB gave a first consignment of equipment to the educational family in the South Region.

“However, given the high prevalence rate of 7.2 per cent in the general population aged between 15 and 49, it was necessary to give the South Region another consignment of material,” Prof. Alexis Ndjolo explained. He urged the Southern Regional Delegate for Basic Education, Jean Désiré Mpoule Lang, to ensure that the equipment get to their beneficiaries.

On his part, Jean Désiré Mpoule Lang heartily thanked the First Lady, saying the state-of-the-art equipment will help to organise the series of planned activities and lessons to implement the Social Vaccine.

After visiting eight regions, the joint CIRCB-UNESCO-Basic Education Ministry caravan is poised to pursue its outreach to the North and Far North Regions. “The Social Vaccine will also later be introduced in other major towns as well as the hinterlands throughout the country,” promised Prof. Alexis Ndjolo, who also announced that diversified partnerships were envisaged on the national and international scenes to boost this project.