What does access to education and health means for pygmies of Lekoumou?

Another aspect we approached was the children’s education during our mission from 17 and 19 octobre. Indeed indigenous people don’t care for children after the age of 10. After school, these children have to find their own food because the parents only look after the babies. Another father explained that his daughter couldn’t go to school this year because he couldn’t afford her exercise books. AZUR Développement promised a donation of exercise books and pens for 20 indigenous children.


Here, the lack of access to health services is visible, like the absence of a clinic or health centre within a 30km-radius. There are no nurses or doctors to administer treatments. They have to walk to Indo or Sibiti to get treated. It is understandable that for people lacking an income, it is difficult to pay 2000 to 4000 CFA francs, that is to say 4 to 10 US$, to go and meet a nurse.

Indigenous people lack the money to pay for the same price for medicine as the Bantus in the pharmacies of Sibiti. Even when the medicines are prescribed they don’t buy the prescriptions. ACIP suggested opening a community pharmacy at the health centre in Indo that would allow indigenous people to get essential medicines at affordable prices. There still remains the problem of finding a partner able to put up the funding for this community pharmacy which will then be sustainable with the sale of medicines.


When an indigenous woman goes to give birth at the health centre, she is asked to give 10 dollars – money they don't have. This discourages them from going back and instead they rely on traditional midwives who have children themselves and have been practicing midwifery for a long time. Besides, indigenous people cannot pay the same price as the Bantus for medicines prescribed by the health centre as they have no income other than the products of hunting. The pressure on the wildlife tends to decrease with the closure of the hunting season from November to April each year and the indigenous people have to find alternative income making activities.


It is necessary to find partners who are able to support the start of a community pharmacy for indigenous people selling generic products they can buy at affordable prices. During my visit to the camp in Makoubi, where a few rare indigenous people breed young goats and grow banana trees, I found that health expenditures absorb an important part of their income and this undermines any development work because the resources earned through income making activities will be used to keep them in the same situation, health expenditure being higher than their income.

Common diseases for indigenous people are malaria, scabies due to a lack of hygiene, diarrhoea and STIs due to sexual violence towards indigenous girls and women from indigenous and Bantu men. These girls and women are chased in the forests and remain defenceless. It must be made clear that there is a cuture of rape within the indigenous community and it is seen as a normal reaction; five indigenous men can have sex at the same time with an indigenous girl - which is nothing but rape.

In view of what has been written, the task is heavy and needs a multi sector intervention so that the indigenous people can achieve their autonomy.