100-year-old Anna Foncha, receiving medal from Apostolic Nuncio. The Catholic Women Association ( CWA) Cameroon have celebrated their 60 years of existence. This took place pleas on Wednesday the 24th of July, 2024, at the Divine Mercy Co-cathedral Parish, Molyko, Buea.
The celebration which had in attendance about 500 CWA women drawn from the 25 Dioceses in Cameroon, was graced with the presence of the Apostolic Nuncio for Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, Mgr Jose Avelino Bettencourt , His Grace Andrew Nkea, His Lordship Michael Bibi, Bishop George Nkuo, amongst others clergymen.
CWA was founded in the year 1964, by Anna Foncha with nine members. During the Eucharistic celebration, Anna Foncha was recognized with a medal by the Apostolic Nuncio for Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, for being the founder of the Catholic Women Association.
Mgr Jose Avelino Bettencourt, while emphasizing on the importance of the CWA association to the society, expressed words of gratitude to the founder of such a prestigious association.
“ It is an Association that is very important and does a lot of good works in our communities.We thank the founders of the Catholic Women Association,we thank the people that are presently operating in it and those who will continue to work. They are all over the world and they are almost in every corner of Cameroon, so it is a very beautiful organization; it brings up a lot of good”, the Apostolic Nuncio said.
The Apostolic Nuncio for Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea, went further in calling on the women to carry on with the living message.
“Well it’s a living message that they are living right now and it’s not a quest of going back with the message but it is the continuation of the message which is founded in the gospel of Christ, the devotion through Mary and the dedication to our neighbor in the need”, Mgr Jose Avelino Bettencourt said.
For her part, Judith Chiatoh, General President of the Catholic Women Association Cameroon, expressed joy that the 60th Anniversary was celebrated during her term of office while stressing on some of the significant strides made by the association in the past 60 years with the most prominent being construction of Women Empowerment Centers.
“Celebrating it at the end of my term of office is very exhilarating. I am so happy about it. And I appreciate God for having brought it within my term of office. Achievements we can not name them but the few that I mentioned in church. In the first place we see that we have changed lives, we have impacted a lot on the lives of families, women and the life of the church. Everywhere you go you see us. We have done a lot to empower women; we have strengthened their lives,
At first there were so many who do not have self-confidence, now a lot of them have self-confidence. With this they can survive even in the midst of a crisis situation. We have constructed Empowerment Centers where we are helping the underprivileged women and girls to build skills in them to empower themselves and their families,” she stated. The Catholic Women Association Cameroon has been expanded to North America, Europe, USA, United Kingdom amongst others
