Help Develop Community-Based Early Childhood SDG Education in Cameroon

Goodness and Mercy Missions (GMM) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2007 by Teh Francis Yai, based in the North West Region of Cameroon. GMM’s mission is to strengthen rural communities by providing essential tools, skills, and opportunities to underserved populations, enabling them to build sustainable and resilient lives.GMM works to break cycles of poverty through education, economic empowerment, and community development, with a focus on long-term, community-driven impact. The organization was born from the founder’s personal experience growing up in a polygamous household with limited resources, where cultural barriers to women’s financial independence nearly interrupted his own education. This experience shaped GMM’s core priorities: empowering rural women to achieve financial autonomy and guaranteeing children’s access to education.Since 2017, GMM has held Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), reflecting its commitment to international standards in humanitarian and development work. GMM’s programs span school sponsorship, women’s empowerment, computer training, library services, school construction, solar energy distribution, peace building, and relief aid delivery. The organization operates primarily in the Boyo Division of the North West Region, with activities extending to the West, South West, Littoral, and Centre Regions of Cameroon.GMM’s core values include participatory strategy, sustainability, equity and non-discrimination, accountability, partnership cooperation, empowerment, and inclusion. Through partnerships with representative organizations and online volunteer support, GMM seeks to leverage global expertise to develop community-based, culturally appropriate programs that can be implemented by local staff and community facilitators on the ground.

Cameroon’s North West Region faces significant challenges in early childhood education, compounded by the ongoing Anglophone crisis that has disrupted schooling for hundreds of thousands of children since 2016. Many schools in rural communities have been damaged or closed, and families displaced by the conflict have lost access to educational infrastructure entirely. In the Boyo Division, where GMM is headquartered, rural and remote villages are particularly underserved, lacking trained educators, appropriate learning materials, and community awareness of the critical importance of early childhood development.This gap directly impedes progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 4, which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Target 4.2 specifically calls for ensuring that all girls and boys have access to quality early childhood development, care, and pre-primary education by 2030. With limited government services reaching these crisis-affected areas, civil society organizations like GMM play a critical role in filling the education gap.Goodness and Mercy Missions, as a community-rooted organization with ECOSOC consultative status and extensive experience in school sponsorship, school construction, and community development, recognizes that investing in early childhood education is foundational to breaking intergenerational cycles of poverty and rebuilding human capital in post-conflict and crisis-affected communities. Through online volunteer support, GMM seeks to leverage global expertise and diverse perspectives to develop community-based, culturally appropriate early childhood education resources and capacity-building frameworks that can be implemented by local staff and community facilitators in the Boyo Division and beyond. This approach allows GMM to access expert skills while ensuring that local people—who understand the culture, languages (English and Pidgin English), and realities of the North West Region—retain ownership of the program.

Volunteer 1 & 2 – ECE Curriculum Development Develop a culturally adapted early learning curriculum framework with age-appropriate modules on foundational literacy, numeracy, health, environmental awareness, and community values; coordinate virtual team activities through regular online meetings; and provide remote guidance to GMM staff on curriculum implementation and contextual adaptation for crisis-affected communities in the North West Region of Cameroon. Volunteer 3 &4– Community Engagement and Training design Design training manuals and facilitation guides for community-based ECE facilitators; develop training modules that GMM staff can deliver locally; create community mobilization toolkits and templates for establishing parent committees; provide virtual mentoring support to local trainers. Volunteer 5 – Educational Materials and Resource Development Design print-ready educational materials and visual learning aids suitable for low-resource settings; create templates and guides in English and Pidgin English that can be reproduced locally; develop instructional videos and digital resources to support local materials production. Volunteer 6 – Monitoring, Evaluation, and Knowledge Management Design an M&E framework aligned with SDG 4 indicators; develop data collection tools and reporting templates for field staff; provide remote technical support for data analysis; compile documentation of lessons learned and best practices. Volunteer 7– Partnership and Sustainability Conduct desk research to map potential stakeholders and funding opportunities; draft partnership proposals and communication materials; support GMM in developing sustainability strategies and resource mobilization plans; provide virtual advisory support for stakeholder engagement.