“I received no other method of discipline from my mom than beatings and abuses”. Thelma recounted.
Thelma Bright Lemnwie Nji is the firstborn to the Nji’s family. Born 18 years ago, the past three years had been very trying for her and her mother as they keep playing the cat and the dog game. Her activities made her mother think she’s been possessed.
Because of this belief, she sought solutions from Reverend Pastors, Fathers, and prophets. Due to her tender age, the parents enrolled her in Presbyterian Secondary School (PSS) Bafut for Secondary Education. While in PSS Bafut, she started copying bad habits and behaving strangely. The result was that her academics started dwindling as she got to the point of repeating form four. From PSS Bafut, she was later enrolled in GHS Nsongwa.
The fights between her and her mother increased as she grew older, scars of scratches on her face also multiplied. In GHS Nsongwa, she made friends with older girls who orientated her towards having boyfriends, dressing seductively, and keeping late nights. That’s how she got involved with having three boyfriends at once. “Each time my parents confiscated a phone or any my fashion items, I will inform any of my boyfriends and they will she replaced it”.
Second-year into the crisis, her mother sent her to live in Yaoundé with a friend. In Yaounde, she became worse. Her mother left Bamenda to Yaoundé on two occasions just to get her well beaten. The beatings rather hardened her thoughts as she went on borrowing money, dating more boys, and hanging out on the streets and not cooperating in doing her house chores. Finally, her mother’s friend could not keep her, so sent her back to the parents in Bamenda.
Mid-December 2019, WACameroon staff through their project titled “Safe the Adolescence and Young Womanhood” did awareness creation on Sexual and Reproductive Health/Rights (SRHR) and Puberty Challenges in PCC Mbomassa. Thelma being a member of the Christian Youth Fellowship (CYF) was part of this sensitization. It was her first time being exposed to information relating to sexuality. The facilitators fashioned and contextualized the sensitization package and used an approach that touched and caused her reflecting. “After reflection, I asked myself, does it mean living a wayward life will destroy my future of becoming a rich woman?” Thelma asked a facilitator at the end of the sensation. She and many others opted to be trained as a Torch Bearer and now she has changed and is using her story to change the lives of her peers and advocating for girls empowerment.
Fortunately, her mother, Mme Ngenefor Margaret Nji, still through WACameroon received knowledge on Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) especially the modules on: Adolescence & Puberty, and Parent-Child Communication. Presently, mother and daughter understand each other better because of the age-appropriate information they each got from #(ASRHR). That is not all because, Thelma’s sharp change has positively affected the youths of CYF Mbomassa.
