Countdown to the 2011 Golden Jubilee of Sacred Heart College Mankon: SHESA Yaoundé pilots the fundraising with 7,702,750 FCFA
By Akere-Maimo
As a prelude to the Golden Jubilee ceremony of Sacred Heart College Mankon to take place in January 2011 on campus, the Yaoundé chapter of the Sacred Heart Ex-students Association (SHESA) raised 7,702,750 FCFA for this purpose. The fundraising night that held on Friday, 13 August 2010 at the Yaoundé Conference Centre, was highly attended by the members of SHESA Yaounde, their friends and loved ones. The event came as a prelude to a series of activities geared towards mobilising resources from the different SHESA regional branches and in the Diaspora. The fundraising is aimed at launching the construction of a multi-purpose auditorium of about 2000 sitting capacity back in their alma mater, Sacred Heart College (SAHECO) Mankon. 10,830,000 FCFA was the total amount raised with expenses swelling up to some 2,177,250 FCFA. The total cash obtained stood at 9,930,000 FCFA and pledges making for 900,000 FCFA.
This comes on the heels of the other projects realised in the school by SHESANs such as the creation of the IT Resource Centre, rehabilitation of the school toilets, construction of the High School building, and a hydrological study to solve the water crisis in school.
The president of SHESA Yaoundé, Asah Francis, in his welcome speech declared: “This event is an urgent imperative needing urgent attention”. He went ahead to highlight successes recorded by SAHECO ex-students as some of them hold prominent positions in government and elsewhere. At the end of his speech, he called on all to support the fundraising. SHESANs and guests present responded to this call as they made very spectacular offers.
The fundraising gala also saw the launching of the Golden Jubilee gadgets as T-shirts, badges, face caps and other items were on auction sales. The event was heavily covered by journalists and during the week of the fundraising an aggressive sensitisation campaign of SAHECO and the Golden Jubilee rolled out.
The evening was spiced with varying degrees of entertainment and side attractions. The SHESANs sang their old SHESA Anthem “O Sacred Heart”, followed by a theatre group from the University of Yaoundé I that performed a special rendition of a poem “The Pledge”. Guest artistes like Richard Kings and Jerry Cleo alongside humorists like the Geh Geh Geh also thrilled the audience. Hon. Aka Amuam, a SHESAN of the pioneer batch and his group of karate boys and girls did a dramatic piece of martial art that was greeted with much appreciation.
Two pioneer SHESA “Mishes”: Prof Bole Butake and Hon Aka Amuam did a presentation on the school. The college began at Big Mankon Primary School, Bamenda on Saturday, 20 January 1961 with only 30 male students. It came about thanks to the vision of Bishop Rogan of Buea and the then Government of Southern Cameroons. For 5 decades running, this initiative has been fostered by the Cameroon government as fashioned by the fine hands of the Mill Hill Congregation, Marist Brothers and Diocesan priests. The effort of parents, teachers, students and well-wishers cannot be undermined.
Testimonies to this are the excellent results that SAHECO has registered in the GCE Ordinary and Advanced Levels for half a century. Today, SHESANs have almost lost count of the number of times SAHECO has topped the list of best scorers at the GCE Ordinary and Advanced Levels exams with an endless chain of a hundred percentage scores.
To go by the words of the president of SHESA Yaoundé, “If you want a job well done give it to a SHESAN”. SHESA was born in 1972 with Hon Ogork Ntui as its pioneer president. The Mwalimu George Ngwane is the present day president of SHESA National.
Though an all-male school, products from Sacred Heart College Mankon today mingle with their better halves known as SHESANETTES who very much active in the business of the group. The SHESA women of the Yaoundé branch came out very powerfully under their banner of SHESANETTES to assist their husbands at the fundraising. The women wing of SHESA Yaoundé is headed by the able Justice Prudence Galega, Number One Technical Adviser in the Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection.
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