Welcome
Welcome to the Village Diary documentation hub. This wiki helps us keep track of information relating to the Village Diary, a FOSS platform we're in the process of building. The goal of the Village Diary is to enhance access to legal, social and health services for orphans, vulnerable children and widows experiencing different forms of abuses. It will also serve as a platform to track the cultural and historical background of families and villages. More detailed information about the Village Diary is available in the Village Diary FAQ and on the Village Diary website.
If you have an idea for how to improve the Village Diary, feel free to add it to our growing Wish List.
General
The Village Diary is an open source development project distributed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). This effort grew out of a need observed in the impoverished rural communities of Cameroon that are assisted by the Link-Up Development Group, an NGO based in Buea. While the Village Diary is designed to meet the needs we have observed in Cameroon, it has the potential to be implemented in any community affected by loss due to HIV/AIDS and the concomitant loss of property and custody rights of children and widows.
Our Story
In our region of Cameroon, when the head of a household dies it's common to see family relations (brothers, uncles, etc.) or members of the community claim rights over the property of the deceased. Without legal documents testifying to the contrary, homes, farm plots and related property are often usurped by others. This property should pass to the rightful inheritors, namely the widow and children of the deceased, to safeguard the future of the children.
Instead, the widow is often forced by necessity to return to live with her family, either with her children or leaving them in the informal custody of their grandparents. Once the widow herself is deceased, the child’s future becomes ambiguous. Many children end up in orphanages because inheritance and plans for child placement were not formally secured by the elder guardians, who had no access to needed legal and social services.
The Village Diary is a new approach to securing the rights of inheritance for children and widows. By providing access to digital records of inheritance, social services and legal assistance to the most vulnerable members of society, we aim to take on poverty at its roots. We don't claim to have the solution to poverty, but we can prevent women and children from falling into this particular cycle of poverty which has common origins in Cameroon and Africa, generally.
Getting Started
As a collaborative, open source software project, our effort extends beyond the borders of Cameroon. If you have expertise you'd like to contribute, please contact Bill Zimmerman, billz@villagediary.org or get acquainted with us by visiting the Village Diary Team page to see who's doing what.