By Anne Blight | By Joseph Lukong

The Starfish 'making a difference' initiative
By Anne Blight

Joe Lukong near the Houses of Parliament on the first part of a journey to get specialist help for people who stammer in Cameroon.

Making cuts to a person's mouth with a razor blade and rubbing elephant dung into the cuts was one of various treatments available to stammerers from the central African country of Cameroon, described by Joseph Lukong, 36. A few months ago Joseph appealed to the Starfish Project by email, to see if there was anything that could be done to help stammerers in Cameroon.

Little or no attention is given to stammering as a public health care problem in Cameroon. Joseph himself comes from a family where 17 members stammer and so he started a self-help group for his family, which grew into the Speak Clear Association Of Cameroon (SCAC).

I know the only way that training can be successful is on a one-to-one basis. I wasn't able to go to Africa, but suggested that Joseph come to the UK to be trained, and return to help train his own people in the Starfish technique. Several months of fundraising by Starfish students raised the funds to cover Joseph's expenses.

After his Starfish training, Joseph returned with manuals, videos and teaching aids, and is now organising the first Starfish course there. Everyone at The Starfish Project will be supporting and following the progress of Joseph and the SCAC mission, to teach the Starfish technique in Cameroon. Joseph's first report appears below.

This is just the start of the Starfish 'making a difference' initiative. We are in discussions with stammerers in various developing countries on how the Starfish technique can be made available to help them.

Our journey to the Starfish family: how it all started
By Joseph Lukong

It was thanks to the British Stammering Association, that we learned of the Starfish Project and the work of its founder Anne Blight. In my country of Cameroon, there is relatively no modern speech therapy.

I visited the UK last July and met Anne and David Blight from Starfish, who took me in to BSA. While there I also met with a stammering colleague who had come all the way from Hungary to get an insight of the BSA and the work it does.

Before starting the Starfish course I was anxious about the content of the three day intensive course, and whether I was to be accepted by the other participants, as I was from a very different cultural background.

On the first day, Paul Bond, who was coming this time to refresh, threw some light on the content of the course and I found in him very good signs of friendship.

The students who had gone through this course were very supportive of us. I remember the videotape of Jonathan that contained his speech prior to his coming to the course and his speech after the course. One could really see a remarkable change in him after the three days of the course.

It gave us courage that we could also be like him, if we kept to the advice that was given us by the course instructors.

The very interesting part of the course took place in the town of Eastbourne where we had to meet and talk to many people we had never met before. It was a very good experience to notice how some people can really give you time to talk and how others won't just be patient to listen to you. This shows how our world is. You see very good and also very bad people.

At the end of the course, I noticed a total change in me and a full mastery of the Starfish technique, which equips me with the knowledge of how to help my people here in Cameroon.

After I returned to Cameroon we began planning the first Starfish course for the Kumbo region in northwest Cameroon - a Christian dominated area of 800 000 people.

It will be difficult to organise a starfish course here under the same conditions as those in the UK or any other part of the world. It would just be out of place to think of the video recording of the speeches of the participants or of teaching them effectively any technique of using the telephone.

I have to thank sincerely Anne and the Starfish family and any other donor that made it possible for this Starfish Cameroon project to be realised.

From the Winter 2002 edition of Speaking Out

See also:
Costal breathing page, which includes Starfish project links

Internet links:
Starfish Project website - and Starfish's News from Africa
Speak Clear Association of Cameroon (SCAC)