Petit Dan and Sarah Foundation, CRIIC and France Volontaire : Franco-Cameroonian cooperation to promote reading and culture

On March 11, 2025, Yannick BINDZI, Volunteer Development Support Officer for France Volontaire, visited the Petit Dan and Sarah Foundation. The goal of the visit was to build a volunteer mission to promote African culture. This project is run by the Center for Reading, Initiation and Integration of Culture (CRIIC), which is partly based at Petit Dan et Sarah. Yannick then got to meet us, Christina and Arthur, the two French civic service volunteers accompanying the Petit Dan et Sarah Foundation for the year 2025.

Joel Célestin BOBO, Christina, Yannick BINZI, Joseph ZINGUI, Arthur, Docteur TOMO

France Volontaire is a French platform for international volunteering exchanges and solidarity. France Volontaire's teams carry out, among other things, networking missions. They act as a link between volunteer host organizations around the world and sending organizations in France. Our meeting with Yannick was therefore an opportunity to exchange contacts, integrate us into the network of expatriate volunteers in Cameroon and provide us with some advice and recommendations. A year away from home, our loved ones and our habits, can be long and difficult. This exchange is a great help and support. France Volontaire also has a role to play in raising awareness and communicating in order to strengthen the volunteering ecosystem in Cameroon. In the near future, an interview or a mini-reportage may be produced on the mission we are carrying out.

The Petit Dan and Sarah Foundation was not the reason for France Volontaire's visit. Yannick came to meet Joël Célestin BOBO, President of the Center for Reading, Initiation and Integration of Culture (CRIIC). The aim was to have CRIIC recognized as a host organization capable of receiving French people on a civic service mission to promote African culture. CRIIC is a cultural association that promotes books, art and African culture worldwide. CRIIC is convinced that African literature has a role to play in promoting African culture and identity. It runs reading and writing workshops for children, in schools alongside authors, in several African countries, and sometimes at the Petit Dan and Sarah Foundation.

" CLIIC is delighted to announce its partnership with France Volontaire, which will enable it to receive French volunteers to help introduce young people to reading and writing. This collaboration is the result of an initiative by International Impact, a French NGO partner of CLIIC, to strengthen our organization's capacity to promote reading. France Volontaire carried out an inspection mission [...] and we are delighted to announce that we have received a favourable opinion.

This partnership is a perfect illustration of Franco-Cameroonian cooperation, which promotes interculturality for universal harmony. The beneficiaries of this partnership will not only be the children of Petit Dan and Sarah, but also other young Cameroonians and Africans.

CLIIC aims to facilitate access to books for all social strata, and to promote reading as a tool for personal and collective development. With France Volontaire, we are convinced that we can make a positive difference in the lives of young people and contribute to the construction of a more educated and supportive society." [Joël Célestin BOBO]

The Petit Dan and Sarah Foundation and the CRIIC have been linked since the latter was founded. It was at the Foundation that the CRIIC was born and where it carried out its very first activities. Their reading activities aim to foster a spirit of creativity and artistic awakening for children.

“We are convinced that reading is essential for children's development, and that young people should become familiar with reading from an early age.” [Joël Célestin BOBO]

Over the past few months, the CRIIC has been running a reading workshop for our children, with the aim of familiarizing them with books. This initiative is an important step in instilling a love of reading and learning in young people. The youngsters were enthusiastic and actively participated in reading and discussing the books. These exercises were also accompanied by writing assignments, enabling the children to practice and then learn how to present their work.

"Our aim is to give the children of Petits Dan et Sarah the chance to let their imagination and creativity explode as they tell their stories. We plan to publish a collective work with all these stories, which will enable the children to see their writings published and share their experiences with others. We're convinced that this project will help foster a love of reading and writing among the children of Petit Dan and Sarah.

Reading workshop with some Petit Dan and Sarah children

"To achieve this project, we're organizing a special event for them on April 26, aimed at equipping the library of the Fondation Petit Dan et Sarah. We're delighted with the work we've done with them so far, and one of the immediate fruits of this collaboration is a poem by CLIIC founder Joël Célestin BOBO, read by Bernard MOLO, a child in the foundation's CM2 class, and broadcast on CRTV's Poste National and on the Association des Écrivains Belges Francophones website. We're convinced that, together, we can make a positive difference in the lives of these children, and help them to become the future writers and intellectuals of Africa". [Joël Célestin BOBO]

Hence, a long-standing collaboration between two organizations sharing knowledge and experience, but above all common convictions.