From October 2025 to April 2026, the Cameroonian NGO Health and Conservation (HAC) carried out the second phase of the “Acting for the conservation of nature” project, led by Youth Conservation with the support of the Fondation Audemars-Watkins and Play for Nature. Four schools in the Centre and West regions ran concrete activities — recycling, heritage conservation, water management, agroecology — for results that go well beyond initial targets, despite a sometimes tense national context.
Four schools, four stories of mobilization
Yaoundé — Paper recycling takes root at Groupe Scolaire Bilingue Mgr Henri Vieter
For six months, HAC volunteers visited classrooms every week at this school of over 3,000 students, raising awareness about recycling paper waste, which piles up due to still largely manual administrative processes. The environmental club created during phase 1 organized itself into seven groups of 40 students supervised by three teachers each, producing papier-mâché, recycled paper artwork, and decorative objects.
Result: 3,297 students and 47 teachers reached or trained, 165 parents engaged.
Mfoundassi — Where culture meets conservation at Collège Mgr Henri Vieter
At the request of the school’s administration, whose academic year was themed “Nature and Culture,” students and teachers explored both tangible and intangible heritage knowledge linked to the environment. Site-specific art creations, plays, and storytelling — the environmental club’s work even led to the production of two academic books, currently being edited.
Result: 1,867 students and 105 teachers reached or trained, 113 parents engaged, 2 books produced.
Ebang — Water as a precious resource at Complexe Bilingue Sainte Famille de Nazareth
At this school of nearly 1,400 students, from kindergarten through secondary level, activities focused on sustainable water and energy management. A key highlight: the installation of a rainwater harvesting system, now used for cleaning and watering plants, and maintained by the environmental club. A school trip also took 40 students to the CAMWATER pumping station in Ayos, 130 km from Yaoundé.
Result: 1,253 students and 80 teachers reached or trained, 172 parents engaged.
Dschang — An 11,000-seedling nursery that’s greening an entire town
At École Primaire Privée Laïque Bilingue Marceline, students learned to make organic biofertilizers and bioprotectors before launching a larger-scale initiative: a nursery of cacao, safou, avocado, and mango trees. Thanks to a partnership HAC built with the Dschang Municipality, 11,000 seedlings were produced — partly for sale to fund the project going forward, partly to help green the entire town.
Result: 574 students and 47 teachers directly trained, 3,641 community members reached, 11,000 seedlings produced.
Nearly 7,000 students and 22,400 people reached overall
Combined, these four activities reached or trained 6,991 students and 279 teachers across the Centre and West regions. Adding grassroots outreach (posters, flyers, Dschang’s community radio) and digital communication (Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp), the project reached a total of 22,412 people during this phase 2 alone.
A success built on local partnerships
The standout achievement of this phase 2 is undoubtedly the partnership forged between HAC and the Dschang Municipality. Following advocacy efforts with local authorities, the municipality committed to systematically integrating environmental education into public and private schools across its territory — well beyond the original project scope. A network connecting the environmental clubs of all four schools was also created, allowing students and teachers to exchange experiences and best practices even after funding ends.
Obstacles overcome
A tighter-than-expected budget, driven by growing interest from schools and communities, required some trade-offs: funds originally allocated to digital communication were redirected toward field activities — book publishing, school trips, awareness sessions. As a result, online reach dipped slightly compared to phase 1, more than offset by stronger grassroots outreach.
More unexpectedly, the post-election context in Cameroon led to the temporary closure of several schools, suspending activities for two to four weeks depending on the town. HAC kept the connection alive through schools’ and parents’ WhatsApp groups, then intensified sessions once calm returned — a catch-up effort that also had the added benefit of involving more families in the project.
A visible before and after
Before the project, none of the four schools had an environmental club, a school garden, or a nursery, and waste management was hardly a priority. Today, each one has an autonomous, functioning environmental club, two vegetable gardens and one garden have been created, an 11,000-seedling nursery is operating, and an entire municipality has committed to sustaining these practices. The behavioral shift — from selective waste sorting to resource use — is now visible day to day among both students and teachers.
What’s next? Building locally rooted sustainability
To keep activities going without relying on initial funding, HAC is counting on several levers: trained teachers able to carry activities forward, autonomous environmental clubs, partnerships with local authorities, and a system for selling part of the harvests and seedlings to self-fund future activities. Among the avenues being considered: using harvests to supply school canteens, tackling both food insecurity and school dropout at once.
Support these initiatives on the ground
This Cameroon report is just one of ten produced by the partner NGOs of the “Acting for the conservation of nature” project, deployed across five African countries. To follow upcoming reports or support these initiatives, visit youth-conservation.org.
If you want to know more about Health and Conservation, you can contact them directly through their Facebook page.
