The Donga Mantung Scholarship Fund-DOMASF has once more come to the assistance of some 368 students and pupils who were drawn from the five Sub Divisions that make up Donga Mantung. The groundbreaking ceremony which took place under the distinguished patronage of the Senior Divisional Officer for Donga Mantung, Dr. Simon Nkwenti Doh witnessed amongst other innovative actives, the distribution school materials to an additional 250 needy students and pupils, the award of excellence to meritorious students, the support to orphans victims of the crisis and the allocation of seed fund to young entrepreneurs.
The 2nd edition of DOMASF which was part a activities marking 2021/2022 Back to School was aimed at raising the human resource base of Donga Mantung division, a laudable initiative of Dr. Fuh Calistus Gentry and sponsor. In programming the scholarship to fall on the eve of the 2021.2021 back to school, DOMASF’s intention was to be a booster to President Biya’s educational policy which aims at making sure all Cameroonian children have access to quality education.
This year’s scholarship event of September 4, 2021 involved schools in all of Donga Mantung aimed at rewarding meritocracy among students, ranging from Primary School to High school levels. In each of the categories, three best pupils or students were rewarded for each sub Division. The best pupils in the First School Leaving Certificate Exams for each sub Division received cash prizes of 50.000 Frs each for the first, 40.000 frs for the second position and 30.000 for the 3rd position. In the GCE Ordinary Level and the GCE Intermediate categories, the best students three students received 100.000 frs for the first position, 70.000 frs for the 2nd position and 50.000 frs for the third positions respectively. In the Advanced Levels General and Advanced level Intermediate, the best three students in each sub division in the two categories backed home the sum of 150.000 for the first, 100.000 frs for the second and 50.000 frs each per student. On the other hand, 31 orphans victims of the crisis received 50.000 frs each. Besides that, over 250 needy students and pupils were given backs and didactic materials for a hitch free back to school.
The greatest innovation at this year’s award ceremony was the support to young entrepreneurs. Two best ideas were selected per sub division from a total number of 300 ideas and each of the selected ideas was awarded the sum of 500.000 frs to kickstart their businesses.
This amounted to over 15 million francs minus organizational charges and transportation. In offering the scholarship Dr. Fuh Calistus was actually giving back to society and encouraging performance and excellence.
Speaking at the 2nd edition of DOMASF, SDO for Donga Mantung, Dr. Simon Nkwenti Doh lauded Dr. Fuh Calistus’s efforts and said it was a pride for is administration in Donga Mantung to have such a philanthropist. He said the more you educate people, the less crime there would be in society. By supporting the education of children, the SDO said Dr. Calistus was helping in curbing the crime wave. Before handing over the cash prizes and the school needs to the beneficiaries, the SDO urged beneficiaries to study hard so as to encourage the donor to continue to give. He applauded Dr. Fuh Calistus Gentry for his continued efforts since 14 years. He said the impact of the scholarship is unquantifiable given that Dr. Fuh Calistus realized long before that it was better to use the scholarship to disengage the young men and women from carrying guns into the bush so he rather used the scholarship and the startup to pull them out of the bushes in order to employ them gainfully. To the SDO for Donga Mantung it is a laudable initiative for other elites to emulate given that this is one of the areas which clearly demonstrates that the programmes of knowledge is gainful more than carrying guns into the bushes, he concluded.
It should be recalled that the idea of Donga Mantung Scholarship Fund started some years ago when GSS Misaje was created and the donor realized that the principal was always having problems with students and parents in Misaje due to their difficulties in paying school fees. Given that an average household in Misaje live on less than 500 FCFA a day and education was always likely to be sacrificed at the altar of choices. To preempt such a situation, Dr. Fuh Calistus decided to bankroll school fees in that school. Proof positive that the scholarship scheme worked is that fact that enrolment moved from 30 students in GSS Misaje to over 1500 today. From the start, the scholarship fund was limited to Ako/Misaje constituency but Dr. Fuh Calistus judged it necessary to extend it to all the sub divisions that make up Donga Mantung. No one, could have narrated this story more than Tarlishi Oliver Yinyu, the Coordinator of DOMASF who doubles as Divisional Delegate of Secondary Education for Donga Mantung. In his speech Tarlishi Oliver noted with satisfaction that DOMASF has impacted lives and has given the hopeless hopes. He said in 2021, the story of DOMASF has evolved with the provision of startups to young entrepreneurs by sponsoring their projects ranging from irish potatoes cultivate to rearing of broilers, rabbits, food transformation, establishment of modern restaurants etc.
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