Empowering Grassroots Community Women is part of the holistic approach which GDEAP believes would make the grassroots communities become a stronger base where decision taking begins. A majority of women at this level depend on subsistence agriculture for survival. With subsistence agriculture becoming more and more challenging amid a rising cost of farm input, rising cost of living, land degradation, the grassroots woman is still left with a lot to do. Women are the backbone of African economies and they invest about ninety percent of their income into the family as compared to just thirty to forty percent invested by men as some research have indicated. But when it comes to decision taking, they are relegated to the background. It is sad that women in every part of Cameroon are marginalized in the political and decision-making arenas, with those at the grassroots badly hit.

Grassroots Development and Empowerment Action Platform is committed to empowering women from the grassroots level. GDEAP hopes to help women empower themselves and make them understand that when political governance, economic improvements and social inclusion starts at the grassroots level, the gap in gender inequality will be greatly closed. Up to now, governance in Cameroon has taken a top down approach. However, GDEAP through its Empowering Grassroots Community Women program hopes to change things by empowering women from the bottom-top.

This cannot be realized without GDEAP designing projects that will empower these women. Vision 2025 aims to provide job related training and coaching as well as mentoring of young girls and women. Our goal is to make sure that our beneficiaries are provided with all the required skills to become properly employed. Our training will also help young women learn how to start their own businesses.

• Adult education.

• Training in sewing and tailoring.

• Baking classes.

• Developing basic training in literacy and numeracy as well as business management skills.

• Teaching women to become project supervisors.

Our fervent endeavor is to provide all our participants with all the required resources and tools to help them start their own businesses. GDEAP has begun its own initiative whose goal is to increase the income of women and to encourage them to participate in local businesses in their communities.

GDEAP understands that the best way to increase female entrepreneurship is through giving them better access to credit. Women also need access to better health services, and representation so as to influence policies that favours them. Women in Cameroon are finding it very hard to take up positions of leadership. Therefore the Girls’ Leadership and Development is a broader project that will lead to empowering grassroots community women in the long run. The need of the hour is to provide a suitable platform that will train and inspire grassroots women to come together, participate actively, form a base and lead in the development effort of their communities.