Frequently Asked Questions
Frequently asked
Questions people ask us
If your question is not answered here, write to us and we will answer it.
What is CAMAB Women?
CAMAB Women is the Cameroonian Association for Blind Women, a registered non-profit association of blind and partially sighted Cameroonian women. In our own words, we are an organisation representing the unified voices of blind and partially sighted women of Cameroon, working to advance our rights and improve our living conditions. We were founded at a constituent general assembly on 8 November 2019, with 20 founding members.
Is CAMAB Women a registered organisation?
Yes. CAMAB Women was registered on 26 November 2021 by the Senior Divisional Officer for Mfoundi, receipt N° 00000647, under law n° 90/053 of 19 December 1990. That is a state-issued instrument, so you can verify it independently rather than take our word for it.
Who leads CAMAB Women?
CAMAB Women is led by blind women, and that is written into our statutes rather than left to custom. The presidency is reserved for a woman with visual impairment, and women must hold at least 80% of the board at all times. Of the eight officers on record, seven are visually impaired, and there are no men in the Executive Bureau. Our founder and President is Eveline Angonwi, who has led the association since February 2019.
What does the CAMAB Centre do, and why does it exist?
The CAMAB Centre at Nkolbisson teaches Braille literacy and handicrafts. It exists for a safeguarding reason as much as an educational one: blind women in mainstream centres have reported gender-based violence and sexual harassment, and the centre lets their education continue without it. It is, in our own description, for women and by women. It was formally inaugurated on 7 May 2026, and recorded its first Braille apprentice in April of that year.
Why does CAMAB work on elections?
Because a blind voter should be able to cast a secret ballot without anyone reading it for her. Our president attended ELECAM's Seventh National Consultation Forum in 2018, trained in Ghana in 2022 on a tactile ballot jacket that lets a voter who does not read Braille vote unaided, and was elected President of the national Elections Working Group in June 2024. The argument has been made and partly won. Implementation is not finished.
What is the Marrakesh Treaty, and why does CAMAB campaign on it?
The Marrakesh Treaty allows a book to be converted into Braille, audio or large print for people who cannot read print, without first asking the copyright holder. Cameroon deposited its ratification on 5 October 2021 and the treaty entered into force here on 5 January 2022, but the national copyright law has never been amended to match. In practice, converting a book into Braille still needs the publisher's permission. Closing that gap is what we mean by the right to read.
Where does CAMAB Women work?
We have a recorded presence in three communes: Yaoundé VII, Bamenda III and Buea. We are based at the CAMAB Centre in Nkolbisson, Yaoundé. We also say plainly in our own reporting that the visibility of CAMAB Women has not yet been extended into the ten regions of Cameroon. That is a limitation we have named ourselves.
Who funds CAMAB Women?
We name our partners by what they actually did. APASH is the only organisation on record as having contributed money to CAMAB. Sightsavers has assisted us with training and advice, explicitly not with funding. RDCOM accompanied us in making the association visible. The Yaoundé VII Council and MINAS were credited at the CAMAB Centre inauguration. We do not describe an organisation as a funder unless it funded us.
How many blind and partially sighted people are there in Cameroon?
More than 600,000, according to the Programme national de lutte contre la cécité (2014). We use that figure because it is the one national source we can point to.
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