Cameroon Country Representative's Monthly Report for May 2021 | The Challenges of Cameroonian Steemians and proposed solutions by @thegreens

Less than three weeks ago, I was appointed to serve Steemit Country Representative for Cameroon to serve alongside @saxopedia and @njiatanga: https://steemit.com/country/@steemitblog/steemit-country-representatives-new-appointments

For weeks, now we have had series of offline and online meetings, with our principal goal being to effectively collaborate to attend to all the needs of all Cameroonian Steemians.
Our plans for @steem-cameroon are huge and I am happy that prior to my appointment as Country Representative, I had been working extremely hard to recruit, retain and reward Cameroonian Steemians.
As Country Representative, I made a lot of promises to Cameroonian steemians as you can read in my CR acceptance message: https://steemit.com/hive-195150/@thegreens/cameroon-steemit-country-representative-s-message-to-steemians
It brings me great joy serving to add more value and purpose to the lives of Cameroonian Steemians.

In my first Country Representative Weekly Report, I published about the challenges most Cameroonian steemians are facing as you can read here; https://steemit.com/hive-166405/@thegreens/cameroon-country-representative-s-weekly-report-or-the-challenges-of-cameroonian-steemians-and-proposed-solutions-by-thegreens

Ever since I published that report, I have continued to dig deep into the challenges that Cameroonian steemians are facing and two new challenges are;

1. Inadequate and inequitable distribution of @steemcurator04 and @booming upvotes. Most steemians are complaining they publish over 12 quality posts and never received an upvote from @booming or @steemcurator04 and that it's discouraged them.
2. Very limited review and feedback of Steemians' blogs by Country Representatives. Most steemians complain that Country Representatives hardly leave reviews on their blogs.

As country representatives, it's our duty to visit all our steemians' blogs at least once a week and curate. To solve this problem blog reviews as well as inequitable distribution of upvotes, we have agreed that we will create a Blogs Review and Curation Spreadsheet Calendar wherein all country representatives have a particular number of Steemians' blogs to review and curate per week.
This means if @thegreens reviews and curates from number 01 to 20 on Monday, @saxopedia will review and curate from 21 to 40 on Tuesday, @njiatanga reviews and curates from 41 to 60 on Wednesday and @fombae from 61 to 80 on Thursday. This process will be rotated so that by the end of the month, all the Country Representives and MOD must have reviewed all the Steemians' blogs. When we review and curate, we will always note those who received the @steemcurator04 and @booming upvotes so that when next we review and curate, we can also award the upvotes to those who haven't received it yet.
By doing this, we will be promoting equity hence encouraging more steemians to be active in our community. More about this will be published in a separate post immediately we commence implementation so that Country Representatives from other countries can implement this strategy.

Other challenges I raised after going through over 70% of Cameroonian Steemians' blogs as detailed in my first Country Representative weekly report include;

1. Most of the Cameroonian steemians don’t know how and where to find free high quality images to use for their blogs.
2. Most Cameroonian steemians write very good posts but tag it wrongly
3. Poor titling of good quality posts is common among Cameroonian steemians
4. Writing without proof reading is very common. It’s very common to find too many spelling and language errors in the blog posts of most Cameroonian steemians
5. There are a lot of Cameroonian steemians whose achievement posts have not been verified
6. We have a huge influx of new Cameroonian steemians joining the platform but who aren’t members of @steem-cameroon community nor part of the @steem-cameroon WhatsApp group.
7. A lot of newbies easily give up because of lack of content and very high competition with old steemians during contests. It’s very normal for a newbie to receive almost no rewards if he or she was participating in a contest that involved old steemians.
8. Newbies don’t power up or delegate SP or follow curation trails because they are ignorant about a lot of steem initiatives.
9. There are very few local contests organized by @steem-cameroon
10. Cameroonian steemians aren’t giving newbies the welcome and support they deserve.

I am very happy that @cryptokannon found some of the issues I raised to be very important for the growth of Steemit as in the reponse below;

"We have appointed a team of Greeter Helper to help us with verifying Achievement 2-6 but for Achievement 1 or their Introduction post, we still need the Country Reps from these countries to verify the users to lessen the multiple accounts creation by 1 person. I hope that @saxopedia and @njiatanga been doing their part in verifying Achievement1 and compilation tasks of users coming from Cameroon, and it is good to have you on Steem Greeters too for this particular task."

I have been sick but I am glad that I feel much better and already contacted @cryptokannon with respect to serving with the Steem Greeters Community. More details about the sick me here; https://steemit.com/sick/@thegreens/taking-a-sick-leave-or-be-back-as-i-feel-stronger

Another issue addressed by @cryptokannon was "A lot of newbies easily give up because of lack of content and very high competition with old steemians during contests. It’s very normal for a newbie to receive almost no rewards if he or she was participating in a contest that involved old steemians."

as for this, I will take note of this and advise Steemit Nursery Team to give priority to newcomers whenever they select winners for the contest that they organize for newcomers and existing users at Steemit Nursery community. I think it should be out of 5 winners, 4 should be newcomers.

Thank you for your keen observations and feedback, it helps in improving the performance of Steem Greeters team too as our function is to accommodate all Newcomers of Steemit.

Proposals to remedy the challenges of Cameroonian Steemians

As already mentioned, the two new challenges will be handled by the Steemit Blog Review and Curation Spreadsheet Calendar
Below are some of the proposals I already made with respect to handling the previous challenges I identified;

1. I Will make a post on how and where to find high quality and free images that Steemians can use for their blog posts
2. We will organize a webinar next week on tagging and post titling. Besides next week's webinar, we plan to organize weekly webinars on different topics such as creative writing, steemit goals, curation trails, benefits of powering up, etc that will educate and inspire Cameroonian steemians to write high quality posts.
3. So far, we have just @saxopedia who is in charge of verifying achievement posts. I will use this week to learn and then effectively take up the role with the Steem Greeters’ project so that together with @saxopedia, we can be able to do more. I am also recommending that @fombae and @njiatanga should take up roles so that together with @saxopedia, we can respond to steemians’ posts before they expire.
4. I will make a post to sensitize Cameroonian steemians to join the @steem-cameroon community as well as encourage all steemians who are recruiting newbies to please forward their contacts for them to be added to the WhatsApp Group. I am also proposing that more Admins be made to the Steem Cameroon WhatsApp Group so that steemians who are recruiting newbies can easily add them to the group.
5. @njiatanga and I started to talk about the Steemit Newbies Encouragement Program (SNEP) and he tasked himself to put something down. In a bid to reduce competition between newbies and advanced steemians, I am proposing that via the Steemit Newbies Encouragement Program we will be creating contests that are specific only to Newbies. Besides the contests, we were also thinking of offering them special encouragement rewards such as:
   If a newbie writes 5 amazing posts per week, we will give them 2 steem just for being creative and consistent. We will have a meeting this week together with @saxopedia and @fombae to further develop this idea.
6. @Steem-cameroon currently has just 02 contests; the Best Day of the Week and Kamer Steem Promo Contests. I believe if we organize more local contests, it will make our community more vibrant, creative and rewarding. I will hold a meeting together with @saxopedia, @fombae and @njiatanga for us to brainstorm about adding a few more contests.
7. @saxopedia, @njiatanga, @fombae and I will have a talk with Cameroonian steemians about the issue of welcoming newbies and set new rules that will guide us with respect to welcoming newbies so that they can get the love and support they need.

@steem-cameroon's Achievements

The week has been a very great week for @steem-cameroon as we have registered over 20 newbies to the @steem-cameroon WhatsApp group and have been able to encourage over 30 steemians to delegate SP to the community account. We now have over 6500 SP delegated to the community account. Bravo to the community members and we look forward to having more delegations in the coming weeks.

Pixabay Image edited and designed by @thegreens

@steem-cameroon prepared and powered over 2000 Steem during the 01/06/2021 #SPUD4STEEM by @kiwiscanfly as you can read here; https://steemit.com/hive-195150/@steem-cameroon/spud4steem-2-139-steem-powered-up-or-the-power-up-challenge

Pixabay Image edited and designed by @thegreens
Meanwhile we had talks on starting the Steem Cameroon Charity Project, an iniative aimed at supporting Cameroonian steemians who are in dire need of support.
Before the month ended, we had deliberated on @rexiano' and @metugejacy20's cases wherein @rexiano is in need of money to complete his school fees and @metugejacy20 in need of money to take care of her sick mum.
We are glad that both initiatives are being taken care of by a fundraising and #Steemit Njangi.

You can support @rexiano via his Steemit Njangi Beneficiary Post: https://steemit.com/hive-195150/@rexiano/cameroon-steemit-njangi-and-100k-shares-program-26sbd-to-be-spent-on-completing-my-school-fees-so-as-to-write-my-second-semester

You can support @metugejacy20 via this post from @steem-cameroon: https://steemit.com/hive-195150/@steem-cameroon/steem-cameroon-charity-project-or-healthcare-support-for-jacintha-s-mum

We launched the Cameroon Steemit Njangi, an initiative via which we look forward to powering up the @steem-cameroon account to 100k SP in less than two years. You can learn more about the initiative here: https://steemit.com/hive-195150/@steem-cameroon/3daxzl-the-cameroon-steemit-njangi-a-steem-program-to-retain-reward-steemians-and-power-up-steem-cameroon-to-100k-sp
By the end of the month, the Njangi had already supported two beneficiaries; @chant and @thegreens as you can read in their Njangi Beneficiary Posts:

1. https://steemit.com/hive-195150/@chant/steem-cameroon-shares-njangi-beneficiary-post-22-05-2021-by-chant
2. https://steemit.com/hive-195150/@thegreens/cameroon-steemit-njangi-and-100k-sp-shares-program-or-26-sbd-to-be-spent-for-health-and-car-insurance-as-detailed-in-the-njangi

Via the Steemit Njangi, @steem-cameroon has been able to raise 52SBD for the 100K SP Power Up Program. Every week from now till April 2021, the Njangi will pump in 26 SBD into @steem-cameroon for power-up. However, the #spud4steem was supported with 52SBD from Steemit Njangi as well as @steem-cameroon post payouts.

Cameroon Steemit Program

Together with @yeesja, @nforyembe, @peacemakers, @saxopedia, @fombae and a handful of Cameroonian steemians, we have continued to raise awareness about Steemit via the Cameroon Steemit Program. Over 500 persons were sensitized about Steemit via the football match between Abakwa Entrepreneurs F.C and CAMSCI Freestyle.
You can read more about the football game on;

1. @yeesja's blog: https://steemit.com/hive-195150/@yeesja/promo-steem-with-this-football-match-abakwa-entrepreneurs-f-c-vs-camsci-freestyle-f-c
2. @peacemakers' blog: https://steemit.com/hive-195150/@peacemakers/the-diary-game-29-05-2021-steem-promo-football-match

This is a brief report of my less than 03 weeks being a Country Representative for Steem Cameroon in May 2021. I will be publishing a post of my June 2021 Plan of Action for @steem-cameroon by weekend.

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