Support Education, Youth Development and Community Capacity Building in Cameroon

Mission and objectives

Goodness and Mercy Missions (GMM) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2007 by Teh Francis Yai, based in the North West Region of Cameroon. GMM's mission is to strengthen rural communities by providing essential tools, skills, and opportunities to underserved populations, enabling them to build sustainable and resilient lives. GMM works to break cycles of poverty through education, economic empowerment, and community development, with a focus on long-term, community-driven impact. The organization was born from the founder's personal experience growing up in a polygamous household with limited resources, where cultural barriers to women's financial independence nearly interrupted his own education. This experience shaped GMM's core priorities: empowering rural women to achieve financial autonomy and guaranteeing children's access to education. ce 2017, GMM has held Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), reflecting its commitment to international standards in humanitarian and development work. GMM's programs span school sponsorship, women's empowerment, computer training, library services, school construction, solar energy distribution, peace building, and relief aid delivery. The organization operates primarily in the Boyo Division of the North West Region, with activities extending to the West, South West, Littoral, and Centre Regions of Cameroon.GMM's core values include participatory strategy, sustainability, equity and non-discrimination, accountability, partnership cooperation, empowerment, and inclusion. Through partnerships with representative organizations and online volunteer support, GMM seeks to leverage global expertise to develop community-based, culturally appropriate programs that can be implemented by local staff and community facilitators on the ground.

Context

Cameroon's North West Region faces significant challenges in education and youth development, compounded by the ongoing Anglophone crisis that has disrupted schooling for hundreds of thousands of children since 2016. Many schools in rural communities have been damaged or closed, and families displaced by the conflict have lost access to educational infrastructure entirely. In the Boyo Division, where GMM is headquartered, rural and remote villages are particularly underserved. Some children and young people have left education entirely, while others have returned after long absences and are studying well below the level expected for their age.The difficulties extend beyond enrolment. Teaching capacity is stretched and opportunities for professional development are limited. Learners who return after an interruption require structured catch-up support that few schools are equipped to provide. Many children and young people carry the effects of prolonged insecurity and displacement, and psychosocial support is rarely available within the school setting. Young people who complete or leave education face a difficult transition into work, with limited vocational provision and few structured pathways into local livelihoods. At community level, parent committees, youth associations, and volunteer networks play a significant role in sustaining education, but their organisational capacity, funding, and continuity vary considerably.These gaps directly impede progress toward Sustainable Development Goal 4, which aims to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. Target 4.1 calls for all girls and boys to complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education, and Target 4.4 calls for a substantial increase in the number of young people with relevant skills for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship. With limited government services reaching these crisis-affected areas, civil society organizations such as GMM play a critical role in filling the education gap. The scope of this assignment covers learners of primary school age and above, together with the community structures that support them.Goodness and Mercy Missions, as a community-rooted organization with ECOSOC consultative status and extensive experience in school sponsorship, school construction, library services, and community development, is building an evidence base to inform the design of its education and youth programming and to strengthen the community structures on which that programming depends. Through online volunteer support, GMM seeks to leverage global expertise and diverse perspectives to review international research and practice and to assess what it implies for community-based education and youth work in the Boyo Division and beyond. This approach allows GMM to access expert analytical skills while ensuring that local people, who understand the culture, languages (English and Pidgin English), and realities of the North West Region, retain ownership of the programme.

Task Description

Volunteer 1 & 2- Access, Retention and Return to Learning. Review international research and practice on barriers to enrolment and attendance, the determinants of drop-out, accelerated and catch-up learning models, education provision in disrupted and displacement-affected settings, and school-level retention strategies; assess which approaches have proved workable in low-resource and crisis-affected contexts; and set out the implications for GMM's programming in the Boyo Division. Volunteer 3&4 - Youth Skills and the Transition to Work. Review evidence on vocational and technical training models, non-formal skills provision, employability and entrepreneurship support for young people, apprenticeship and mentoring arrangements, and the alignment between training provision and local economic opportunity; identify the conditions under which such programmes lead to real livelihood outcomes; and set out the implications for GMM's programming. Volunteer 5&6 - Learning Support and Psychosocial Wellbeing. Review evidence on teacher capacity and professional development, classroom practice in low-resource settings, remedial and individualised learning support, school-based psychosocial support for children affected by conflict and displacement, and the relationship between wellbeing and learning outcomes; assess what can realistically be delivered by community facilitators rather than specialist staff; and set out the implications for GMM's programming. Volunteer 7&8 - Community Participation and Organisational Capacity. Review evidence on parent and community participation in schooling, community-managed education initiatives, youth associations and volunteer networks, the organisational capacity and sustainability of community groups, and approaches to measuring community-level results; assess which models sustain themselves after external support ends; and set out the implications for GMM's community mobilisation work. I'mCommon requirements for all volunteers. Each volunteer works remotely and produces one individual written deliverable in English of 3,000 to 5,000 words, structured either as a literature review or as a research paper, with complete and consistent academic referencing. The written work must be produced by the volunteer. Indicative milestones are as follows: week 1, confirmation of the research question and submission of an outline; week 2, submission of a working bibliography; week 3, analysis and drafting, with a complete draft submitted at the end of week 3; week 4, response to written feedback, revision, and submission of the final deliverable. Volunteers are expected to maintain regular communication by email with GMM throughout the assignment period.

Competencies and values

Living conditions and remarks