Women in Bamenda Weep for a Return to Normalcy in Anglophone Cameroon

women weep for peace to turn to Cameroon's English Regions

Women of all walks of life trooped into the Bamenda Municipal Stadium to cry to God Almighty to grant peace to the North West and South West Regions that have been increasingly unsafe since the outbreak of the Anglophone crisis in November 2016

The women wept for their children, husbands and their fellow women who have been killed both by the Ambazonia separatist fighters and the Cameroon defense and security forces.

"Guns don't talk, people do", "All forces ceasefire," are some of the banner messages displayed by the women as they wept

They called on the warring parties to down their weapons and give peace a chance.

Woman weeps with funeral T-shirt of brother

The Anglophone crisis went confrontational in May 2017 when the Ambazonia Defense Forces was created. Since then, government has taken measures to put at end to the activities of the separatists.

This process has led to the death of several women, men and youths. Villages have been wiped out in Momo, Boyo, Menchum and recently Ngoketunjia and Donga Mantung and also in some parts of the South West Region. This has greatly reduced the farming land for rural women to cultivate. A host of them stranded in urban centres.

In parts of Boyo, women have resulted to burying the corpses of their children and husbands, a custom left only for men in the North West Region

cross section of women

Eileen Akwo, a gender activists, recounted that it took them extra efforts to mobilize the women who themselves are scared of the security challenges of the time.


"The women cried to express their sorrow. The world should know that the women are not happy and this crisis has really weighed down on women. There is an urgent needs for us to live like brothers and sisters",She said.

Some of the women came with sack dresses and funeral T-Shirts used at funerals for their loved ones.


Championed by the North West, South West Women Task Force, they called on the authorities that be, to look deep into this problem and come out with long-lasting solutions.

The women also wept for their fellow women who have resulted to using rags as sanitary pads in the displaced houses in Cameroon and as refugees in neighboring Nigeria.

A strongly worded letter calling for the Head of State, Diplomatic Missions and the powers that be to act fast was read out at the end of the event.


The women wept for two hours

By Ndi Tsembom Elvis

Wum Council Empower's Youths Towards An Effective Back To School

Youths at Morning Devotion 

Wum council in the Menchum Division of North West Cameroon has empowered some 101 youths drawn from it's municipality as part of her social cooperate responsibility. Of the 101 youths, 76 were directly recruited by the the council and another batch of 25 youths, were recruited thanks to the partnership between the Pari Mutuel Urbain Camerounais, PMUC and the Wum council


 The global envelop of 4.290.000 FRS CFA was distributed to the youths as a form of empowerment after their 30  and 60 day stay at the council

Wum council stands tall in the division as the only council that has never stopped empowering the youths in a bit to curb the high rate of unemployment rocking the municipality. The challenges faced in this youth empowerment drive has been the sociopolitical stalemate in the two English speaking regions which has led to thousands of job loss as well as the non effective presence of many youths at school.

 The holiday makers were described as full of enthusiasm, hardworking and obedient by Councillor Buo Ephraim Amuh, Chairperson of the Works and Infrastructure committee of the council

The Mayor of Wum council, Mr. Dighambong Anthony Mvo was represented at this occasion by the 1st Deputy Mayor, Mr. Hamza Umaru, who showered praises on the youths who braved the odds to assist the council in keeping the streets and other public premises clean, as they dug blocked gutters, planted ornamental trees and flowers that help to beautify the municipality, and above all, trees were  planted in the municipal forest for posterity

Emptying of Blocked Gutters

 He encouraged other youths who have never benefited from this youth empowerment scheme to apply when next the opportunity comes


The SDO of Menchum, Kamga Charles, lauded the initiative of the council for putting youth development first, and accompanying  the youths towards self sustainability. He added that the council is a non-replaceable catalyst of development in the society, and called on the council to ensure sustainability of the ornamental trees, flowers and the 5000 trees the youths have planted during these holidays.

The SDO also used the occasion to call for an effective back to school come Monday September 3, 2018, noting that Knowledge is Power.  Education he says, is the premise of progress, in every society and family.”


The council was encouraged to put in place a sustainable mechanism, to ensure that the job done by the children should not be in vain, at a time when the challenges of Global warming are glaring.


The youths in their goodbye message read by Anang Michael, thanked the council for the opportunity given to them to serve their fatherland while expressing the difficulties they went through; ” it has not been easy doing this job, especially in this crisis. The holiday job was an idle opportunity for us to stay away from HIV, Malaria, drug abuse, Typhoid and other social ills." He said


 This year's holiday job was marked by working along the streets, digging and opening culverts, planting flowers, working around church premises, palaces, schools, delegations and administrative buildings.

keeping Wum Clean

The youths also pleaded with the council to source for funds and continue to keep the municipality as clean as they're leaving it

The financial package they noted will help them prepare for an effective back to school

Since 2014, the Wum Council has effectively empowered 395 youths through holiday jobs, to the global amount of FCFA sixteen million and fifty thousand (16,050,000 FRS)


By Ndi Tsembom Elvis

“A Common Future” Campaigns to Protect Women Online

By  ZELIO SIFORA C. (UBa Student on internship)

Colbert Gwain -CEO A Common Future – vision casting in a bus with journalists

The campaign seeks to uphold and respect the rights of women online, particularly on the social media, where various forms of abuses continue to be perpetrated against the girl child and women in general.

Colbert Gwain, CEO of A Common Future explaining the concept to journalists in Bamenda on Tuesday, July 31, in a “vision casting” held in a bus that was used to transport them across Bamenda’s major streets said “we intend to encourage and increase the active participation of women and girls online without harassment”

The project he added “seeks to promote a feminist Internet where women’s voices are not only heard but respected”

The campaign falls under the canopy of what he terms “Internet Freedom Festival Cameroon” which globally looks for innovative e ways of challenging women’s exclusion from online spaces and bolster their rights to freedom of expression.

Journalists taking part in the Vision Casting tour

The campaign has identified privacy violations, sexual harassment, stalking, indecent exposure and vulgar images as forms of violation of women’s rights online. The campaign will use film projections, discussions and exchanges by some selected educators in inter-urban transport buses to drive its message across. It also intends to use the upcoming presidential elections campaign to lobby the candidates who have all formulated the use of the social media into their campaign to promise the protection of internet users after the poll.

The vision-casting tour was broadcast live on the internet on the www.bamendaonline.net Facebook page, including part of the question and answer session that was part of the event.

FIGHT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE:WUM COUNCIL EMBARKS ON REFORESTATION OF HER MUNICIPAL FOREST

Reforestation is the natural or intentional restocking of existing forests  that have been depleted, usually through deforestation. Reforestation can be used to rectify or improve the quality of human life by soaking up pollution and dust from the air, rebuild natural habitats and ecosystems, mitigate global warming since forests facilitate bio sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and harvest for resources, particularly timber, but also non-timber forest products. 

Youths offloading trees in Wum Council forest

A similar concept, afforestation, another type of forestation, refers to the process of restoring and recreating areas of woodlands or forests that may have existed long ago but were deforested or otherwise removed at some point in the past or lacked it naturally (e.g., natural grasslands). Sometimes the term "re-afforestation" is used to distinguish between the original forest cover and the later re-growth of forest to an area. Special tools, e.g. tree planting bars, are used to make planting of trees easier and faster.

The goals of both afforestation and reforestation are the same: to avoid deforestation on a large scale and thus stop the large scale depletion of natural resources, preserve the smooth running of our ecosystem, and biodiversity. Reforestation and afforestation also aid in offsetting carbon emissions, the damage done to our ozone layer, and global warming. This is due to the fact that trees play a vital role in our functioning ecosystem, which includes the quality of our atmosphere.

Youths offloading trees in Wum Council forest

It is from this back drop that the Wum Council has embarked on the reforestation of her municipal forest. For this first phase of the 2018 reforestation stride, the Wum Council partnered with the Pari Mutuel Urbain Camerounais, PMUC, for the planting of five thousand trees. This partnership greatly contributed to the temporal employment of some twenty five youths within the municipality.

          Five thousand trees shall also be planted during the second phase of the reforestation of the Wum municipal forest project.

Message of the Bishops of Cameroon on Killings and the Escalation of violence in the North West and South West Regions

 

His Grace, Samuel KLEDA, Archbishop of Douala President of NECC

1. Meeting in Yaoundé on 7th August 2018, we, the members of the Standing Committee of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon, once more note with regret that violence and abuse are increasing and persisting in the North West and South West Regions of our country. Fighting between the security forces and the secessionists, strewn in several armed groups, has become a daily event. All this is happening despite the cry of distress that we sent out to all Cameroonians in our Letter of 16‘h May 2018: "I have seen the afflictions of my people!" (Exodus 3: 7); “Let us put an end to all forms of violence and stop killing one another! We are all brothers and sisters; let us retrace the path of dialogue, reconciliation, justice and peace."

2. As the days go by, this crisis intensifies, endangering lives, property and social cohesion. The population, administrative, traditional and religious authorities, the police and security forces are assaulted, humiliated and terrorized. To this effect, civilians are kidnapped and taken to unknown destinations where they are subjected to torture, inhuman and undignified treatment. Vehicles and convoys of administrative authorities are attacked within alleys of towns and villages. Not Even private vehicles are exempted from these attacks.

3. Some villages have been emptied of their population. Caught between armed groups and secessionists who instill terror and the national defense forces whose mission is to maintain order and safety of goods and persons. These violent clashes have driven a greater part of the inhabitants into exile or forced them to stay cloistered at home or to flee into the bushes. The consequences are grave at all ‘levels: economic, social and religious.

4. No one is spared from this situation of insecurity, not even religious authorities. A clear example is the case of Reverend Father Alexander SOB NOUGl‘, Parish Priest of Sacred Heart Parish Bomaka (Diocese of Buea), and former Catholic Education Secretary of the Diocese of Buea, shot dead on 20‘" July 2018, in the town of Muyuka,

5. We convey our heartfelt condolences to the Bishop of Buea, His Lordship, Immanuel BUSHU, to his presbyterium, to the lay faithful of Bomaka Parish, to all the people of God who are in Buea and to the natural family of Father Alexander.

We also express our unflinching solidarity with and compassion for all the bereaved or displaced families, and to all victims of violence related to the crisis in the North West and South West Regions.

6. We strongly condemn this despicable and cowardly act, and express our dismay and deep sorrow for this heinous crime committed against an anointed one of God, that has come just a little more than one year after the assassination of Bishop Jean Marie Benoit BALA, adding to the long list of assassinated bishops and priests. We commend to the Mercy of God our deceased son, Alexander, as well as all those who have lost their lives in this crisis.

7. We call on the competent authorities to carry out investigations so that the perpetuators of this abominable crime may be made to answer for their action before the competent legal authority, and that the State assume its sovereign duty of safeguarding the security of persons and goods throughout the national territory.

8. We denounce and condemn, once again, all acts of violence regardless of their origin which can only provoke reprobation and indignation. Furthermore, we demand that those who commit these acts should put an immediate end to them in order to spare our country from sinking into chaos.

9. We request the renunciation of violence and war as means of reclaiming political demands and resolution of crisis between sons and daughters of our Nation.

10. As we emphasized in our cry of distress, (May 16, 2018) we “think that mediation is now more urgent in order to come out of the crisis. Please, spare our country, Cameroon, from a useless and senseless civil war!"

11. For this reconciliation, we pray to God the Father: "May you make your Church a sign of unity and an instrument of your peace among all people. “ (Eucharistic Prayer for Reconciliation II)

12. We invite all the faithful of Cameroon, as well as men and women of good will, to intensity prayers of supplication and intercession, so that the Lord may touch the hearts of all, and give everyone the courage to renounce all obstacles to an immediate resolution of the crisis, and the return to peace.

13. As we draw closer to the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace and Patroness of Cameroon, we exhort all the faithful of our country to pray the Rosary, to fast, to do adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, so that the Lord Jesus, through the intercession of His Mother and our Mother, should drive war far away from us, and grant us unity and peace.

Done at Yaoundé, 7^th August 2018

For the Standing Committee of the National Episcopal Conference of Cameroon NECC, His Grace, Samuel KLEDA, Archbishop of Douala President of NECC