The road from Bambili to some of the outlying communities served by St Francis of Assisi Parish is not merely a distance to be covered. It is a barrier to reaching people who need help.
For Rev. Fr Cornelius Nyebaki, who recently took over pastoral responsibility at the parish, the challenge became evident as he encountered the work of an already active Social Welfare Commission.
Some mission stations are located in hilly areas where poor road networks make movement difficult. Reaching some of these communities by car can be difficult, while motorcycles can navigate the single tracks more easily.
“That is why I consider the road network to be challenging,” Fr Nyebaki explained adding that “but with a bike, I’m sure that those who need our services, the priest and those involved in the Caritas activities, shall reach them easily.”
It is a gap Caritas Bamenda, with support from Missio, is seeking to address by strengthening the Church’s structures closest to the communities.
Twelve parishes in the Archdiocese of Bamenda on Wednesday, 26 August 2026, received a motorcycle each to support their social welfare activities. The motorcycles were handed over at Big Mankon by His Grace Andrew Nkea Fuanya, Archbishop of Bamenda.
The donation is part of the project, “strengthening pastoral structures for community resilience, livelihood promotion and social cohesion across the Archdiocese of Bamenda.”
For Njoh Emmanuel, Project Manager, the intervention responds to a changing humanitarian landscape.
“In most communities, most enclaved communities, government structures are closing. The other NGOs that were here have withdrawn because of funding,” he said.
According to him, the Church has increasingly become one of the few structures still attempting to respond to the needs of vulnerable people in hard to reach communities.
“The only structures that are remaining and are grappling to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable people in these communities is the Church,” he said.
The project therefore seeks not simply to provide transport, but to strengthen parish structures so they can organise, identify needs and respond more effectively.
Njoh Emmanuel said assessments showed that many parish structures were already attempting to serve their communities but lacked the governance structures, skills and resources required to do so effectively.
Caritas Bamenda consequently developed the project to strengthen these structures and improve their capacity to respond to communities that have endured years of crisis.
According to Archbishop Andrew Nkea, the motorcycles are a practical demonstration that the Archdiocese’s Provincial Pastoral Plan can translate into action at parish level.
He described the initiative as “a proof for us that the provincial pastoral plan works” and said the motorcycles were provided specifically to enable social welfare commissions in the pilot parishes to reach poor, sick and underprivileged people.
“These bikes have been given for a specific purpose. And this purpose is to reach out to the poor,” he said.
He also framed the intervention as part of the Church’s Christian responsibility to serve people in distress, reminding the beneficiaries of the Gospel teaching that service to the least privileged is service to Christ.
According to Caritas Bamenda Director Odette Nchanji, the motorcycles respond to a need identified through assessment rather than being distributed arbitrarily.
She said Caritas contacted parishes across the Archdiocese and used responses from a baseline survey to select the 12 pilot parishes.
“We don't just see and select a parish because I know somebody from that parish,” Nchanji said.
“We do a baseline survey. We made calls to all the parishes in the Archdiocese of Bamenda, and from their responses, we got the 12 parishes.” she added
But the project goes beyond mobility.
Odette Nchanji said beneficiaries were trained on safeguarding before receiving the motorcycles and were required to sign safeguarding policies. They were also trained on income generating activities to help the parish commissions become more sustainable.
The objective, she explained, is for the parish structures to eventually function effectively without depending entirely on Caritas’ main office.
“That is the essence of this project. So it is an extension of Caritas,” she said.
Fr Nyebaki said the parish would no longer have to find transport every time commission members need to visit vulnerable people in distant communities.
He also plans to ensure that commission members are trained to ride the motorcycles themselves, making outreach more convenient and regular.
For Caritas Bamenda, the motorcycles are one component of a broader humanitarian response that includes protection, water, hygiene and sanitation, child friendly spaces and livelihood support.
The Director said the organisation continues to receive people facing different forms of vulnerability, including child abuse, domestic violence and gender based violence. She stressed that protecting the dignity and safety of beneficiaries remains central to Caritas’ work.
The immediate challenge, however, is sustainability.
The current intervention covers only 12 parishes and is being implemented as a pilot. Caritas says it has already identified additional gaps during the first three months of implementation and has begun discussions with funders about possible continuation and expansion.
If further resources are secured, the model could be extended to more parishes and potentially to other commissions under the Archdiocese’s pastoral plan.
For communities where poor roads, insecurity, shrinking humanitarian presence and limited resources can isolate vulnerable people, the motorcycles are intended to turn parish social welfare commissions into a more mobile and locally anchored response system.
By Bakah Derick for HIlltopvoices Web
Tel: +237 694 71 85 77
0 Comments