The Women's Organization of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon and the Challenge of Women's Emancipation in the North. The Lutheran understanding of ordained ministry and the position of women in church practices in northern Cameroon 232 6.1.1.
Dedication
Declaration
Geographical Maps
Background: Former French Cameroon and part of British Cameroon merged in 1961 to form the present country. Cameroon has generally enjoyed stability, which has allowed the development of agriculture, roads and railways, as well as an oil industry. Despite the movement towards reform democracy, political power remains firmly in the hands of an ethnic oligarchy.
Prologue
After my brother's death, I realized that my mother was the most important person in my life. The advent of my marriage to Marie Claire in 1987 was one of those moments in my life when I became aware of the crucial role a woman can play in an individual's life.
Chapter One: Introduction
Framing the Problem: Social Evolution of the Condition of Women in Northern Cameroon
This explains why the situation of women in northern Cameroon today is different from that of their foremothers a century ago. Therefore, a thorough evaluation of the contribution of Christianity to the improvement of the situation of women in Northern Cameroon will be necessary.
Motivation
In this context, women in the Church and those who live according to the rules of traditional and Islamic societies in Northern Cameroon are treated equally. After a thorough analysis of church structures in Northern Cameroon, there is a clear indication that women are not treated fairly by their male counterparts.
Definition of Key Concepts
- Is the 'Women' Concept a Social Invention of Men?
- The Concept of 'Church'
- The Notions of Continuity and Change Through Historical Development
Basically, the concept of 'church' covers two main types of human realities, namely the spiritual reality and the material or empirical one. In this brief definition of the church, we would rather avoid a doctrinal debate over the concept of the church.
Methodology
- A Feminist Approach
- About the Women's Emancipation Movement in the African Context
- Sources
One of Oduyoye's strongest statements about the situation of women in Africa was that by. No written sources are collected in the form of archives from the Lutheran Church in Cameroon.
Chapter Overview
To avoid the mistake of being too general about African women and the Church, I have limited this research to the specific case of EELC women. The chronological framework of this study covers the period of the Church's existence in this area. In other words, this research is primarily intended to shed light on the important but hidden contribution of women in building society in general and the Church in Northern Cameroon in particular.
Thus, by presenting the geographical setting of the region called Northern Cameroon, and by situating its people and the Church in their historical background, I. In chapter four of this study I attempt the difficult task of revealing the hidden work of the reveal female missionaries. in Northern Cameroon. The analysis of these documents aims to enable the reader to critically evaluate the contribution of women to missionary work in Northern Cameroon.
Women are viewed differently depending on the cultures and traditions of the societies to which they belong.
Chapter Two: Geographical and Historical Presentation of the Research Field
The Region and Its People
- The Region
- The People
- The Effects of the Islamic Conquest or Jihad in Northern Cameroon until the Beginning of the 20 th Century
- The Islamic Conquerors of Bornuan Origin
- The Iihadists of Usman dan Fodio
- The Western Mission Societies in Northern Cameroon
This kingdom which the Fulani themselves called Fombina (south) in comparison to the position of their capital Yola (see the Pre-colonial Adamawa on Map 1) was established after the period of the Jihad in Northern Cameroon. The Islamic campaign launched by Idriss Alawma against the Mandara kingdom caused major movements of the populations in the region. According to Njeuma'", the attitude of the Jihad warriors towards non-Muslims in the region was ambiguous and uncertain.
Different groups of people declared war on each other under the manipulation of the Fulani Muslim leaders. From a cultural and religious point of view, the impact of Islamic Fulani culture on the non-Muslim population of Northern Cameroon was decisive. Given the particularly hostile context of Northern Cameroon due to the presence of Islam and the opposition of the colonial authorities, missionary work in the area was not easy.
The attitude of the government [of the French colonial government] since 1916 [when more than two-thirds of the German territories in Cameroon were entrusted to France after the German defeat in the First World War] had been to gradually increase the freedom of women.
Chapter Three: The Perception of Women in the Pre- Islamic and Pre-Colonial Northern Cameroon and the
Women and Gender in Pre-Islamic and Pre-Colonial Northern Cameroon
- Women and Child Upbringing
However, it is the direct responsibility of women and more specifically mothers to provide early training and educate girls in particular. European and African societies have their own views on the role of women, which differ from time to time. In the Gbaya society, of which I am a part, raising children is generally women's and women's work.
Therefore, the African principle that to educate a child is to prepare it to face life's challenges applies to the role the African woman plays in training her young. African women's responsibility in the traditional context was not limited to the sole sphere of child care and education, but included other aspects of life such as health care, economic and social development. Their understanding of the concepts of health, illness and healing was largely determined by how they saw the world.
Therefore, the philosophical or conceptual content such as the strength, power and well-being of the body covers the concept of health in the Massa society.
Impacts of Islam and Christianity on African Women's Economic and Social Conditions in Northern Cameroon
- Impact of Western Culture on African Women's Condition
This clearly illustrates the important economic and social role of women in African societies. However, with the presence of Islam and especially the work of the missionaries, African societies in Northern Cameroon underwent major changes. Therefore, the idea of trading and making profits with other people was foreign to Africans.
The direct consequence of this was the denigration of women, who became a mere means of production in the hands of their masters. This alarming situation of women during the Islamic invasion of northern Cameroon shows why the struggle for women's liberation was evident when the missionaries arrived. Instead, the French colonists in northern Cameroon adopted a friendly attitude towards the Muslim elite at the expense of the spread of Christianity.
My aim in this chapter was to present to the reader a portrait of the African woman as perceived by society in the pre-missionary period in northern Cameroon.
Chapter Four: The Role of the Women Missionaries in Northern Cameroon (1924-1998)
Evangelism and Christian Education Through Bible Schools, Sunday Schools and the Women's Work in Northern Cameroon
- Sunday School as a Tool for Christianising People in Northern Cameroon
- Alphabetisation, Translation and Literacy
- Women's Education Through Mission Schools in Northern Cameroon
- The Missionary Perspective of the Women's Work in Northern Cameroon
- The Social and Economic Impact of the Missionary Work on the African Women's Position in Northern Cameroon
The translation and literacy work carried out through the work of the missionary societies that were present in Northern Cameroon in the early 1950s had a major contribution from missionary women. Mission Bible Schools and Training of Indigenous Clergy in Northern Cameroon. Fear of losing well-trained local people to the colonial administration was common among field missionaries in northern Cameroon.
In this sense, the students in the Bible schools were limited to the needs of the missionary societies in Northern Cameroon. These are some of the questions I would like to address in the following paragraphs. However, this attitude of undermining the natives' education was not the practice of the only Sudanese mission in Northern Cameroon.
As in any other area of missionary work, female missionaries were at the forefront of teaching the Bible to the natives of the north. 224 The 1956 Garoua Conference between the colonial government and the churches in northern Cameroon was a turning point in the establishment of Christianity. In northern Cameroon, the training of African women was initiated by missionaries, unlike the training of African men in the main.
The Women Missionaries and the Health Care Work in Northern Cameroon
- The Missionary Work and the Implementation of Modern Medicine in Northern Cameroon
- The "Sisters" of the Sudan Mission
- The "Misses" of the Norwegian Missionary Society
- The Sisters of the Roman Catholic Church
- Missionary Medical Practices in Northern Cameroon
Anna Marie Gunderson, will be agents of great change in the lives of the people of Northern Cameroon. So, from that day on, Trobischev's service in the region focused on physically ill people. Therefore, it is worth mentioning here that the sisters of the Roman Catholic Church in Northern Cameroon have played an important role in responding to the health needs of the people, especially in rural areas.
In northern Cameroon, Protestant missionary societies began missionary work almost forty years before the Roman Catholic Church. Indigenous responses to western medicine and a public health issue in northern Cameroon. And what was the impact of the new education brought by the missionaries on the social position of African women in northern Cameroon.
Chapter Five: The Role of African Women in Mission and Church in Northern Cameroon.
Chapter Five: The Role of the African Women in Mission and Church in Northern Cameroon (1933-1995)
From Maids' Status to Voluntary Evangelists
Maria Rosa Cutrufe1li292 in her book African Women: The Roots of Oppression mentioned earlier in this chapter argued that African women were very conservative and did not want to accept the new changes brought about by the Western colonial administration with the aim of exploiting the African reduced people in general and African women in particular to the level of a mere object of production. Hence the idea that women are more adaptable to new situations; cope more easily with whatever life circumstances they find themselves in than their male counterparts, they turn out to be a mere social construction of the human mind based primarily on bias. In support of his argument, Cutrufelli pointed to the fact that in most African societies, women were among the last to open up to new changes.
292Maria Rosa Cutrufelli, an Italian writer and journalist, conducted extensive research into the position of women in many countries on the African continent, such as Angola and Congo (ex-Zaire). Being both a feminist and a Marxist, she argued that there was an inescapable relationship between women's social and domestic roles, and the exploitation of their labor as part of the capitalist system introduced to the African continent by Western colonialists.
