Cameroon Catalyst
Since her trip to an orphanage in Tanzania with KSW in 2005, Claire Gott (Cl 97-06) has been keen to work more closely with African charities. In October 2009 she set up a charity organisation called Cameroon Catalyst with her friend (Emily Hill). They wanted to use their engineering skills to help impoverished communities and those less fortunate than themselves. They started to look at countries and regions that weren't getting much support and heard about the Mosame Trust, through a friend. The founder of the Mosame Trust grew up in village of around 900 people called Bambouti in Cameroon.
Claire and Emily recruited 17 other 3rd and 4th year civil engineering students at Southampton University to help them begin designing and fundraising for an educational and medical centre in the village of Bambouti. The villagers live in mudhuts and currently have no running water, toilets or sewage system and the nearest hospital is 3 hours away. The new centre will house a nurse's office, treatment rooms, stocked pharmacy room, showers, toilets, library, community hall, classroom, grain store andwater tower. In January they visited the village to resource materials/equipment/builders and assess the proposed site. Construction began in Feburary, only weeks after they left and is now almost complete. They will all be heading out in June to help with the final stages of construction/organisation of utilities.
So far just shy of £40,000 of their target £50,000 has been raised through personal fundraising events(Claire will be completing the Welsh 3000 June) and organised events, such as student football tournaments and krispy kreme stalls. But the majority of our money has come from donations from local companies and friends. They have appeared in the ICE south regional magazine and a full article about Claire's involvement within the project is on the Costain website. (Claire is sponsored by Costain and due to start working for them in September).
To support Claire please visit her Justgiving website page.